Intergalactic Summit

If you still want that guard detail, please sing out.

No problem at all, just remember that you're family - you don't need to deal with threats to your person alone. My (virtual) door is always open.

And so the lost child gets comfortable in the ant-hill she has crushed, ignorant and uncaring to the fact that the dead deserved better than what she so carelessly gave them.

I told you this would happen. You made a home with capsuleers instead of humans, and now you are lost in your ivory tower, never to return.

It kind of lacks the punch of earlier grandiose statements. Maybe you should try setting yourself on fire again.

What a pretty picture of a lost child getting bitten all over by angry ants.

You told me I wouldn't come back from this. Fair enough, but you implied at the time that I was starting back down the road into the Black. You said I'd become a shambling corpse, something worse than dead.

I no longer believe that such a fate is something we have to fear.

I'm a human being, Aldrith. I live among human beings similar to myself.

As you do.

On the job, I do kill people.

As you do.

... many of whom probably don't deserve it. But have you noticed that the universe doesn't seem to much care what people deserve? Life feeds on death.



Your god's great kingdom:

Holders with power; slaves, none;

Worms that eat them both.

Entry Nineteen: Last Light

You were my mentor.

"Vesper." That's what you still call me, one of maybe three people who do. You did encourage me to pick a new name. I guess you hoped it would distinguish me from myself.

There were a lot of things I guess you hoped would. And in the end, I'm not the same person.

Not different enough to suit you, though.

In the end, by your ways and beliefs, you're a good person and I'm not. That seems to be the gist of it.

And I can respect that, except now it seems that your beliefs also oblige you to hate me.

So ... I guess, so be it. I'm not really in a position to tell you you're wrong.

But I think ... in the end, the things you expect from me? I wonder if maybe they're the things you're most afraid of being, yourself. Now I think on it, the original Aria didn't shamble out of the dark to threaten your family. She shambled out of the dark to threaten her own.

If you see any of yourself in her ... that idea might be terrifying to someone who has people close at hand that he cares about, who care about him. Whom he's afraid of hurting, directly or indirectly.

Maybe that would be enough to motivate you to try to teach me about your hatred.

There's a candelabra Lyn gave me. Old, wrought iron ... it's really pretty. I still do Nicoletta Mithra's candle exercises every day: a little light. A small, symbolic act. The feelings are more complicated, now, of course.

Today, I'm lighting an extra candle, here, as I write this. The first, this time, is for the little bit of good you gave me, and which I hope will stay.

The other is for the animosity I bear you. The impulse and will to take people who are precious to you out of this world, to avenge my pain in ways I know will hurt even an immortal, because I know they will hurt. The will to make you suffer, and to watch, and smile. The will to show Teacher how well he taught.

Because I do have those feelings. There's a temptation, there, to prove that there are some enemies you should not dare to make.

But I'm not Pryce, and I'm not her, and I look to become neither. Let that candle flame contain all the will to do harm I might have directed your way.

This entry is all the revenge I'll ever take.

Thank you for the lesson, Teacher. I'll guard my heart more carefully in future.

A puff of breath....

Smoke. I watch that point of red-orange at the end of the wick fade to gray.

Entry Twenty-One: Nihilism

A lot of my reflections here and elsewhere probably look really dark to a lot of people-- specifically, nihilistic. Nihilism is the general term for belief in nothing, and often it applies to specific areas (as in, "moral nihilism") one at a time.

Not too many people will admit to being nihilists. Mostly, it's something people seem to want to find a path away from. Capsuleers, and others with responsibilities others find horrifying, might find some kinds of nihilism attractive, though: if nothing's true, there's nothing especially "bad" about being responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths.

It still seems like a (dis)belief like that could drive you to drink, though.

It's quite true that my beliefs share a lot of qualities with nihilism. I'm a moral relativist; I don't believe in any literal god or gods; I see no true laws in this existence beyond what literally can't be broken; I don't believe in free will; I don't even believe in my own existence.

For a Shuijing practitioner, this isn't an ending. It's not something to despair over; it's just basic truth.

If we accept these truths, the next question is, "What then?" If there are no gods, no laws, no will I can impose on reality beyond what reality itself grants me, no separate self-- what then? Answering that question, not avoiding the underlying truth, is where Shuijing practice lies.

A "sojourn" is a temporary stay. Most of my journals in this series are essentially travel writing, about specific places. These, more personal, reflections are similar: if the others are about temporary stays in particular nations, then this is my record of a time spent as a living, sapient being.

A morally silent universe without gods, but full of meaning-- this is the world I inhabit.

It won't last. But that's okay. I was never really here to begin with.

But I'm here now.

Respectfully, that you didn't tell me so seems to have been one of those nuances.

I wonder how much of what you've anticipated was really a progression of any kind. There are a few of these things, especially here, that are nothing new-- that have been here, implicitly, for as long as I can remember. The entry above is an example.

... so I wonder how much of what you predicted came from anticipating changes, and how much is just a result of knowing me passably well as I have been and remain, Sir Mokk.

Well, there are some more.. challenging... 'preys', if that is what you are looking for...?

It also has an effecf on the mind that surfaces in odd ways. See the cult of Bob.