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What do you live for?

Author
Elmund Egivand
Tribal Liberation Force
Minmatar Republic
#21 - 2016-03-15 11:10:42 UTC
My reason for living is summed up in the below phrase:

"It's a big cluster out there."

A Minmatar warship is like a rusting Beetle with 500 horsepower Cardillac engines in the rear, armour plating bolted to chassis and a M2 Browning stuck on top.

Yarosara Ruil
#22 - 2016-03-15 12:13:18 UTC
Miss Kim! You're back! Oh I you missed so much!

I'm so sorry that you are currently living through an existencial crisis, and I hope you find the right motivation to shake off that depression. Like, a hobby or something. I heard science is the hippest thing right now!

Hopefully, we can bump with each other soon and have a nice chat with tea.
Che Biko
Alexylva Paradox
#23 - 2016-03-15 12:45:04 UTC
Hmm, a post from who may well be my opposite on some curve provokes me to make my first IGS post in months...even though another Archur has been provoking more meaningful thoughts these past months...but I'll get to that, hopefully.

Why do you live?
Because I do.
Why do you keep clinging to this existence, to this world, when it tears you apart, when it takes everything you value, everything you hold dear, everything you love?
Because it has not done all those things yet.
Why do you keep your fight?
I'm not sure if I do.
Why do you keep your life?
I'm not that tired of living that I wish to end it.
What makes you move?
Love.

Tell me, what have you lost already?
My balance, friends, and probably some bits of my sanity. Perhaps some face too. And motivation.
Have you lost your family?
Not entirely, not even close.
Your home?
In a way.
Your loved one?
No.

I have learned already, that it is better not love to not feel the loss when they take it away.
I think there's a difference between love and attachment/desire. But it is tricky to love something and not grow attached to it and desire for its existence to continue.
So tell me, why are you still alive?
Causality.
Why do you keep clinging to this world, full of hatred, malice, loss and violence?
Because it's also full of love, kindness, gain and peace.
Why haven’t you pulled the switch and ended this pseudo-immortality farce?
I'm not that tired of this pseudo-immortality that I wish to end it.

And I will stand for what is real.

And would you?

Yes, unless there's no me.
Haria Haritimado
Itsukame-Zainou Hyperspatial Inquiries Ltd.
Arataka Research Consortium
#24 - 2016-03-15 13:04:13 UTC
Diana Kim wrote:
Why do you live? Why do you keep clinging to this existence, to this world, when it tears you apart, when it takes everything you value, everything you hold dear, everything you love? Why do you keep your fight? Why do you keep your life? What makes you move?

[...]

Tell me, what have you lost already? Have you lost your family? Your home? Your loved one? Even if you haven’t, they will come for them, for this is their nature.

Dear Ms. Kim,

Thank you for your arrousing appeal to self-revelation. I read from your words the unerring conviction to strive on - and to shake and awake others who might hesitate, doubt, turn to passivity. A deeply humane and sympathetic motive. - I quoted two paragraphs above which seem to show that you had a certain situation in mind when you wrote the appeal. I won't say it's the only one, but it seems dominant to me: The situation of facing a life of loss, danger, fighting (even combat, propably) and emotional upset. A hint toward heroism, maybe, - men and women against fate, entangled in a tragedy called life. I deeply agree with your bottom line: endure and advance, and know about the Why.

However, I would like to put a sightly different perspective in focus. The adventurous lifes of heroes and capsuleers demand for existential reasons, for committment beyond the ordinary, profane, or mediocrity. But what about the ordinary, profane, and the life in mediocrity? I think it's worth noting that vast majorities of our societies are not elevated, not aggressed, beaten, or challenged beyond anything but ordinary life. So I will try to answer for them, if you permit.

A life in mediocrity is a life rooted in daily obligation. The obligations are sometimes self-given, sometimes forced by powers beyond our scope. But the core of obligation is the insight into the necessities of life, and to embrace them freely. I consider this attitude as deeply ethical. And I think obligation is an important motive to live for.

Dispensability is a weird answer to the initial question, it seems. Many humans, maybe even many of us capsuleers, are actively seeking to reach or maintain a situation in which they are dispensable, replaceable. This might be a doctor's fight against illness, an administrator's task for process optimization, or a father's struggle to raise his child to independance. Dispensability then, is not the negation of one's life, but the committment to a greater cause without falling for arrogance.

Dispensability leads to a sense of historicity, in which I see a third reason to live for. Whatever the actual reason to live is, it should reach somehow, to at least the smallest degree, into the past and/or the future. For the common man, this is preferably the corporation or family, but it could be many things, ideas, memories, visions.

Peace is my last answer; for it appears to me to be an universal reason for living: to be finally at rest.

Yours sincerely,

Haria Haritimado
Itsukame-Zainou Hyperspatial Inquiries Ltd.

Takoma Panala
Doomheim
#25 - 2016-03-15 17:21:44 UTC
Nauplius wrote:
The chief aim of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.


Ooh. Kinky.
Diana Kim
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#26 - 2016-03-16 19:34:40 UTC
Ms. Alleile,

I will make sure to answer this question thoroughly in one of my following writings.


Mr. Onzo,

thank you.


Ms. Jenneth,

please excuse me, I don't want to sound offensive, but for me living for the sake of living sounds just as simple existence. Just to exist is not enough to live.


Ms. Runekin,

I am really fascinated by this game. You should introduce me someday to try, I will be greatly obliged.


Mr. Tuulinen,

Precise and to the point. I like it. Though I'd put the State on the first place.


Ms. Vess,

I am sorry about situation with your parents, but I'd like to remind you, that holding duty to the Republic makes you enemy of Caldari State.


Ms. Foley,

from one thing it is sad indeed. But from the other - look at the world around you. Would you like for your children to live with it? Would you like them to live as children of a capsuleer, ostracized by the whole society?


Lady Newelle,

thank you. I perfectly can understand you, as I am not a "true Caldari" myself, and even if our cultures and beliefs differ, just as you won't be as True Amarr in God's eyes, I will never be proper human in Caldari eyes, but regardless that we both do what we have to do.


Mr. Singularity,

But how can our Fathers forgive us for what we became?


Mr. Wulver,

thank you. And still I believe that this immortality is nothing but a sham. I believed this even before I joined the program, and unlike you I wasn't really trying to get into this, as you can understand. Becoming a capsuleer for me means the same as standing in front of a firing squad. Unfortunately, some paths are even worse than death.


Ms. Noh,

I am actually slightly terrified at a thought what you would actually do with me.


Ms. Ruil,

is something wrong? I don't recognize your manner of speech. Anyway, offer for the tea is accepted. Please, well... "bump"... into me when you will have time. (is this correct usage of the word?)


Mr. Biko,

you are flattering me. Thank you for the answers. I still don't believe in peace though.


Haritimado-haani,

I'd like to note that I didn't post it as a sort of a revelation, I am not really a prophet for this. Not even a tiny one for self-revelation. It is just a bit of philosophy and thoughts in a given moment of time. I assure you, I had way more than one certain situation in my mind when I was writing about this, otherwise I would have stated and described the situation. Despite I am still a young pilot, I have seen quite a lot already.

And, aren't we all living a life of mediocrity? We become heroes only after death. Before that we all are just mediocre citizens, pilots, capsuleers, doing our jobs and fighting against odds, or surrendering and flying by, carried by events away into unknown. I would say that obligation is just a form of duty.

And as a half-joke and half-truth, which actually matches my state of mind, I can add that to be finally at rest we need not to live, but to die. This is the only way we will earn the peace. But that would be a coward move, escaping the world to not do the duty...

Honored are the dead, for their legacy guides us.

In memory of Tibus Heth, Caldari State Executor YC110-115, Hero and Patriot.

Deitra Vess
Non-Hostile Target
Wild Geese.
#27 - 2016-03-16 20:15:26 UTC
Diana Kim wrote:

Ms. Vess,

I am sorry about situation with your parents, but I'd like to remind you, that holding duty to the Republic makes you enemy of Caldari State.

Thank you, though honestly your sympathy's kinda wasted. I don't mourn their loss now, nor at the time did the Republic or our tribe. When they were around they weren't all that concerned for my brother or me. It was always, "work work work". Whatever..... I will say, its a shame that my allegiance to what is essentially my home makes me an enemy. Like I've said time and time again, Federation can solve their own problems much like the Republic can solve our own, why bother helping them? Its not my problem nor my concern until it becomes it. Its rather doubtful that will happen any time soon.
Claudia Osyn
Non-Hostile Target
Wild Geese.
#28 - 2016-03-18 05:42:46 UTC
Well, I live mostly to binge on horrible daytime soap operas and the IGS. Seeing as how my corp suddenly up and vanished on me, it's been little more then an echo chamber around the office. Not great for productivity. Though I'm so close to being able to fly a Dreadnought.....




Diana Kim wrote:
James Syagrius wrote:
My dear Miss Kim are you being refreshingly diplomatic?

Diplomatic? DIPLOMATIC?!
Why do you think I would even TRY to be diplomatic with you?

I was only writing my thoughts, and I promise~ I will TRY to be diplomatic with you, but not before the last of subhuman gallentean scum occupant will be forever erased from the face of our ancestral home Caldari Prime.

***

For everyone ELSE.

Thank you for your answers.



.... You were doing so well....

A little trust goes a long way. The less you use, the further you'll go.

Herzog Wolfhammer
Sigma Special Tactics Group
#29 - 2016-03-20 05:32:02 UTC
Diana Kim wrote:
Why do you live? Why do you keep clinging to this existence, to this world, when it tears you apart, when it takes everything you value, everything you hold dear, everything you love? Why do you keep your fight? Why do you keep your life? What makes you move?

Universe by itself is just a collection of silent rocks and superheated plasma, cold as death void and uncountable number of flying at supersonic speed garbage like milliards of tiny bullets, ready to pierce through anything standing in their way. It is dead stagnant worlds, rotating around dying stars, and violent pulsars, tearing apart everything that gets into their gravity claws. It is bright stars and, supernovas, and giant supermassive black holes making whole galaxies to dance to their music.

And here come us, changing it for our needs, for our survival. We claim it as our home and forge it like the Maker forged us into being. We build, enhance, erect and level, crush and reassemble. We create something greater, and we live with it. But there are forces who fight against us. There are those, who destroy what we create, who take from us what we own. By their malice or their design they become enemy, enemy of the State, enemy of Caldari, of humankind… They are like parasites, who suck our juices, who envy our success… and they won’t seem to stop. It is not enough that we live in a harsh world that isn’t friendly for us, that we have to fight to conquer our living space from dead rocks and burning elements. But it is against sentient malicious beings we have to fight as well. And they are hitting us where it hurts the most. They take what we dear the most.

Tell me, what have you lost already? Have you lost your family? Your home? Your loved one? Even if you haven’t, they will come for them, for this is their nature. I have learned already, that it is better not love to not feel the loss when they take it away. And even if you kill them, if you keep fighting and stand against all the odds, they are still pouring more and more and more. Eventually they will take everything, kill everybody dear to you, take all your posessions and take your own life. So tell me, why are you still alive? Why do you keep clinging to this world, full of hatred, malice, loss and violence? Why haven’t you pulled the switch and ended this pseudo-immortality farce?

I have answered this question for me quite a long ago. Even if they took everybody I loved. Even if they take everything I have, and even if they take my own life, I still have something they can’t take. However they will try, they won’t, unless I surrender it myself. And I won’t let it happen, because this is something that is worth fighting for. This is what belongs to you, but also it is not yours. It is fragile as a newborn child, and strong as an army of hovertanks. And it is something that only you can control.

It is your duty. YOUR duty. To your State, to your people, to the humankind. It is your duty to stand and fight, and to protect those, you can. Because doing your duty you will keep killing enemies, and by this you can save someone’s loved one, make parents to return home to children… even if not yours, even if you won’t know them, never see them and they will never recognize what you did for them, but your contribution will mean for them way more than the whole universe. If you have lost someone, you will understand how…

This is why I will keep doing my duty. Because this is what I have, this is all what I have, and this is what they can’t take from me. I will keep doing it disregarding odds, disregarding my life and my possessions. And I will stand for what is real.

And would you?



I live for a day that I get a chance to take you out on a date ♥

Bring back DEEEEP Space!

Diana Kim
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#30 - 2016-03-20 13:07:08 UTC
Would you die for it as well?

Honored are the dead, for their legacy guides us.

In memory of Tibus Heth, Caldari State Executor YC110-115, Hero and Patriot.

Herzog Wolfhammer
Sigma Special Tactics Group
#31 - 2016-03-21 04:06:03 UTC
Diana Kim wrote:
Would you die for it as well?




You are not the first to ask that.

Bring back DEEEEP Space!

Velvet Midnite
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#32 - 2016-03-21 07:33:48 UTC
Max Singularity wrote:


What is left?


To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their loved ones.
James Syagrius
Luminaire Sovereign Solutions
#33 - 2016-03-21 15:07:12 UTC  |  Edited by: James Syagrius
Diana Kim wrote:
James Syagrius wrote:
My dear Miss Kim are you being refreshingly diplomatic?

Diplomatic? DIPLOMATIC?!
Why do you think I would even TRY to be diplomatic with you?

I was only writing my thoughts, and I promise~ I will TRY to be diplomatic with you, but not before the last of subhuman gallentean scum occupant will be forever erased from the face of our ancestral home Caldari Prime.

***

For everyone ELSE.

Thank you for your answers.
You are the cutest thing when angry, that little crinkle at the bridge of your nose when you pout is adorable.

One wonders though, why you have reserved such ire for me?

I thought our few but memorable meetings quite amicable.

I even tried to introduce you to that charming young man… his name escapes me.

Well no matter.
Diana Kim
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#34 - 2016-03-21 15:26:37 UTC
I have nothing against your personally, Mr. Syagrius. Please excuse me if I made it sound so.

Honored are the dead, for their legacy guides us.

In memory of Tibus Heth, Caldari State Executor YC110-115, Hero and Patriot.

Che Biko
Alexylva Paradox
#35 - 2016-03-21 15:47:35 UTC
Diana Kim wrote:
Mr. Biko,

you are flattering me. Thank you for the answers. I still don't believe in peace though.
I'm flattering you? Oops That was not my intention...but you're welcome! I'm happy I did. I sort of want to hang out with you now and try to see if I can make you a believer by giving you at least one moment of peace.

So let me know if you ever feel like doing so.
I would end with my default "Peace" goodbye, but for this occasion, I'll make an exception.

Love,

-Ché
James Syagrius
Luminaire Sovereign Solutions
#36 - 2016-03-21 18:52:46 UTC  |  Edited by: James Syagrius
Diana Kim wrote:
I have nothing against your personally, Mr. Syagrius. Please excuse me if I made it sound so.

Well that is very kind of you but please don’t be nice to me dear, it confuses me.

We ‘sub-humans’ often have difficulty with complex emotions you know.

I could I suppose feign outrage or insult at your remarks… but that would be a lie.

You see, I think at heart you’re a kind and gentle soul, your simply trapped in circumstance.

Goodness knows I am myself.

I have, I fear grown to expect such from you… and surprisingly I find that in and of itself… disappointing.
Diana Kim
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#37 - 2016-03-21 19:35:20 UTC
I didn't try to be kind with you either, Mr. Syagrius, and please excuse me as well if I made it look so. I have only stated a fact and apologized for making confusion earlier.
As for being trapped in circumstances, they are caused by your people.

---

Mr. Biko, hang me out or hang me up?

Honored are the dead, for their legacy guides us.

In memory of Tibus Heth, Caldari State Executor YC110-115, Hero and Patriot.

Claudia Osyn
Non-Hostile Target
Wild Geese.
#38 - 2016-03-22 18:11:57 UTC
Diana Kim wrote:
I didn't try to be kind with you either, Mr. Syagrius, and please excuse me as well if I made it look so. I have only stated a fact and apologized for making confusion earlier.
As for being trapped in circumstances, they are caused by your people.

It takes two to do this dance, the fault doesn't lay completely on the Gallente.

A little trust goes a long way. The less you use, the further you'll go.

Karina Ivanovich
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#39 - 2016-03-26 05:23:30 UTC
There was once meaning.
And then.

Life spoke to the void.
"Why do so many hate me? Yet they cling so tightly to my cloak."

Death spoke to the void.
"I am accursed and feared by so many. Yet they all come to me in the end."

Joy spoke to the void.
"I am pursued by all. Yet they find me so elusive."

Hope asked the void:
"Why am I both held so tightly and thrown so easily away?"

War spoke to the void.
"I am what they hate. Yet they cannot live without me."

Peace spoke to the void.
"I am sought by all. Yet they have never found me"

Innocence asked the void:
"Why am I both the first they have and the first they lose?"

Strife asked the void:
"Why am I the one that they hate to love? Yet they still do so love me."

Intellect said to the void:
"I lead them further toward salvation. Yet I also lead them toward destruction."

Madness asked the void:
"Why are those blessed by me the only ones to see the truth?"

Sanity asked the void:
"Why am I both the lense to see and the fog obscuring?"

Sleep said the the void:
"I am necessary to them. Yet they do not know when I am with them."

Pain spoke to the void.
"I am both the warning and the danger. Yet I am loved by some more than life."

The void spoke to them all.

"Life, you are a beautiful lie."

"Death, you are a painful truth."

"Joy, you are the fleeting escape."

"Hope, you are what gives them reason."

"War, you are what gives them meaning."

"Peace, you are never to be found."

"Innocence, you are what gives memories meaning."

"Strife, you are the catalyst."

"Intellect, you are an illusion."

"Madness, you are a warrior's last stand."

"Sanity, you are an accepted hypocrisy."

"Sleep, you are the glimpse of reality."

"Pain, you are the lightning rod in the maelstrom."


"And what are you?" They asked the void.

The void replied.

"I am you"

Some call me insane. If the universe is sane, then I embrace that label.

Claudia Osyn
Non-Hostile Target
Wild Geese.
#40 - 2016-03-30 15:23:50 UTC
Oh, and the answer is "cheesecake". It's what everyone lives for.... not that everyone will admit it....

A little trust goes a long way. The less you use, the further you'll go.