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More points to ponder

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Perram Riptide
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Posts: 31
Joined: Sun Feb 06, 2022 7:41 pm
Character Name(s): Perram

More points to ponder

Post by Perram Riptide »

I've been pondering,

I've been pondering about what it means to love and what it is to be in love.

If a good friend wants to let someone down gently, they may say "I love you, but I'm not in love with you." This looks like a heartbreaking rejection, but is the former really less desirable than the latter? Love is selflessness, and you care for the well-being of what you love. To love is to embrace pain and resist selfish desires.

The tingling sensation of love is something I feel when I am alone, perceiving that the universe is far bigger than I can comprehend and I will only experience a miniscule fraction of it. I am an infinitesimal speck of sapience in an existence far grander than myself. It started long before I was born, and will continue moving far after I'm gone, with countless small specks of sapience experiencing parts of it I will not know. Any day, I can take a moment to empty my mind, take in all the sensations before me as if they are new, forget that things have names, and I will love the universe.

Love is also the crushing feeling of accepting that someone you want to be close to so badly does not want you to be a part of their life. It's letting go and moving on from past events, forgiving past wrongs in yourself and others, and foregoing immediate gratification to stay faithful to higher principles when nobody but you knows or cares what you're doing.

I would say I have felt a lot more love in solitude than in sharing my space with another.

Now, what about being in love?

This is a classification that is usually reserved for a crush or a romantic partner. But as I have pondered on it, it applies to more areas of life than that. A merman can be in love with his work to the point it takes over his life and separates him from his family. A powerful queen sea witch can be so in love with her ideology that she will indoctrinate the masses at birth and wage wars to force her ideals on everyone; she cannot tolerate the existence of mermaids who do not share her opinions and they must either be converted or exterminated. A merman can be so in love with a great book that he refuses to see its flaws and will defend or ignore atrocities done by those who penned it.

Being in love feels good, but it can lead to terrible consequences when left unchecked. So why do so many desire to be in love more than to love? Do the two have to be mutually exclusive? When they are, this is what can be expected:

A merman who is in love with himself, but does not love himself will have a big ego and a low self esteem. He will indulge in gratification when he knows it is harmful to himself and others. If he is in love with a mermaid, and does not love her, he will be consumed by a selfish obsession and project what he wants rather than see the truth.

A merman who loves himself and is not in love with himself will do what is right even when he feels scared and weak. He will want to be good and to do good and give reverence to the community and merfolk he also loves. If he loves a mermaid, but is not in love with her, he will want only what is best for her and himself and he cares not for beauty or grace; he sees who she truly is and knows her flaws, and loves her anyway.

So how can a merman be disappointed if he hears "I love you, but I am not in love with you?" What if he is told the opposite? What if a woman tells him she will feel alone in the world without him, and he points out all the family and companions she has, and her response is "but I'm not in love with them." How does he respond to that, if he loves her?

He could say that love takes time, and declarations of love should not be done lightly. But then he thinks of a newborn child, a stray catshark without a home, and reading classic epics. Surely, those are situations where falling in love fast is most beneficial; it is better than parents letting babies die if they think time is required for love to form in all situations. The merman has to admit there are times when instant love is appropriate. He accepts this, but has more to consider that leaves him apprehensive.

What if he has seen a man he thought could be a friend let himself get brainwashed by a cult and act on their orders only because he is in love? What if he has bonded with someone he thought could be a father figure, and this bond was quickly and callously broken simply because the woman he is in love with got hurt and he swears vengeance on an entire group he was formerly in allegiance to who had nothing to do with it? What if he has read stories of people in love held hostage and everything was put at risk and costly sacrifice had to be made to save them?

What if he lives in a society that will arrest him for committing an act of heresy if they discover he would engage in being in love in this way and they take it seriously?

... but that is getting too specific.

What if he is afraid that she is in love with him, but does not love him? That would be more heartbreaking to him than the opposite.

It seems that to be in love is exclusional, but love does not have favorites. A merman who loves the sea is enamored by the chimeric green and magenta scales on the tail of every parrotfish, gazes to the gyrations of undulating anemones in awe, and adores the skittering giant sponge crabs and magnificent coral reefs and tangled kelp forests and the bubbling volcanic vents that has nothing to do with him. A merman who is in love with the ocean only thinks about water.

Maybe a state of being in love can, with time, develop into true love, and no matter if the two come together or drift apart, all will be well, because they will do it with love.

It's just something to ponder.
~A box jellyfish has no brain, but it has feelings and it has a soul~

~A merman who is in love with the ocean only thinks about water~
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Perram Riptide
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Joined: Sun Feb 06, 2022 7:41 pm
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Re: More points to ponder

Post by Perram Riptide »

I've been pondering,

I've been pondering lately: what's the deal with shell bras? Millions of clams get hunted and killed every day to mass-produce these stupid shells to sell bras, and they don't even get eaten. The corpses just get tossed away to waste, the heartless fashionistas! All because somewhere down the line, someone decided that merpeople shouldn't be swimming around naked. But the weird part is how we wear them.

Sure, some have strappings, but more often than not, the sea witch shell bra designers enchant their wares so they just stick on your chest without any visible support. I can twirl around, turn upside down, and even jump above the surface at top speed and dive back in with a backflip and the shells never fall off.

The things don't even wiggle if I get tickled by seaweed. You'd think these things are cursed, but I can just take them off... when I'm alone. In private water. Yeah, those sea witches don't want us dudes taking our bras off in public, even though pecs are their favorite part of a merman's body, because they're just that territorial about their men, and it's such a sexist double standard!

Yeah, most of the time a mermaid has to wear a bra, especially in public waters with big schools of mermaids, but it's not as strict for them. Like say, when you wanna go sunbathing. The whole point is to go floating and dry off, so you want to wear as little as possible. But us mermen still have to have our pecs covered up, while they can let it all hang out. It's not fair!

And sometimes, once in a while, you'll even run into a shell-free mermaid underwater. Now, you air breathers that walk around have a way to avoid these situations. You can look up, and you can be sure that wherever you're walking, you'll never see any bare naked bosoms if your people don't have wings. But I can be swimming down a dark trench, look up to the light, and BAM! Fully exposed mermaid boobs bobbing overhead! Sometimes they'll have an excuse, like "my hair is so long it covers it up anyway." Come on, nobody wants to see that, ladies!

Be grateful you don't live in my shard. I will spare you visuals of the horrific imagery i've stumbled into swimming on a regular basis. Thank me when I re-enter the dreamstate, guys.

Next time you go looking for mermaids, count how many shell bras are strapped on and how many just cling to a torso like magnets. You might be surprised how many you find in the former category. The latter stick out in my mind as such an iconic image that I never realized there are actually a great many more strap on shells than I thought, but keep a keen eye out for those magic suction shells.

Just something to ponder.
~A box jellyfish has no brain, but it has feelings and it has a soul~

~A merman who is in love with the ocean only thinks about water~
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Perram Riptide
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Joined: Sun Feb 06, 2022 7:41 pm
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Re: More points to ponder

Post by Perram Riptide »

I've been pondering,

Just what is the library of dreams for? My immediate assumption would be a place that keeps codices of interest for dreamers to peruse, organized in a fashion to facilitate convenience to that end. That appears to be what the sphere halls would be for; but these halls are gated to a dreamer's sphere level, and can change radically without an easy way to keep track of its contents. The archives, where I write this post now, seems a place more fit for that. If nowhere else, you will find a dreamer or two in the library, doing what, reading codices? Rarely. More often they'll be loitering about talking. But there is purpose to why they come here besides that it is the closest place in thresh to do it.

The library has one, very notable property: arts used here will not drain one's focus. Little use in that, because it seems like the least practical place to be using any arts but Inscribe; but they'll come here to do it.

Not for any practical use out of those arts; they perform arts here, repeatedly, until they are leveled up enough to be platted by a teacher. Once platted, they will continue the process, ad nauseum, until they can advance no further at their sphere level.

Now what's the point in that? It seems boring, compared to all the creative uses they can get out of the arts in the dream plane. I'd rather be out exploring the dreamplanes, or learning about the shards dreamers come from, after I've read all the library material.

Let me tell you a tale of when I dreamed one day, and Liolira asked, "You are a dreamseer; what are your Insight arts at?"

Starry eyed, I proclaimed, "Blast is ready for plat one, my dreamblade is 8/9, Stormy Edwards helped me get my DreamSeer from 1 to 27 yesterday with bubble vents so I can use my level 27 dreamseer chak, and most other Insight arts are 2."

The look on her face seemed... puzzled.
"How did you get to Sphere 3?"

"By getting experience from writing reports for the Order of the Sable Moon!"

"And who platted you to sphere 3?

"Drizzt Do'Urden. He made a speech about what a monumental occasion it is."

"Did he know that none of your Insight arts were even platted yet?"

"He must not have thought that was relevant."

I had a big smile on my merman jaw. She must be so awestruck, that I managed such an accomplishment, on such perceived extraoardinary conditions. Judging by her reactions, no dreamer must has ever done it before. I was special!

There was a stern look in her eyes.

"You are at a deficit."

A deficit? How could she have such a dismissive opinion of the talent it took for me to make it this far, without collapsing any of the cute mares?

"Get your ass in the library of dreams. Now."

She then told me that to reach sphere 4, all of my Insight arts must be level 39. The way to do that? Invoking them repeatedly in the library and having a teacher plat them until they get that far. Why do I have to do this? This isn't fun like doing research. Wouldn't it be great if all dreamers advanced their arts, doing what they naturally would with them, instead of this artificial practice? The only reason I want to be sphere 4 is so I can invoke Forge to make my own hydrothermal bubble vents. But why is the art of Forge gated to sphere 4 in the first place? Wouldn't all dreamers want to forge artifacts of their imagination from the get-go?

One of the arts I have to learn is Restore, but she tasked me a quest to earn it. I must do an act of kindness for dreamers to restore their hope in the future of the dream city. The first thing I thought of was writing a charter to open the Emergence Academy, but she said that's too big. Wouldn't it be kind for dreamers like me to have an Emergence Academy house to call home? We could frequently throw parties of researching history, and orgies of books instead of private parts.

Well, maybe in addition to getting the EA opened, I will leave some codices lying about where they can't disappear, saying nice things to whoever picks them up.

But I have to ponder, really ponder, if we want more awakened dreamers to come and make the city a bustling and thriving utopia, wouldn't any newly awakened dreamer be dejected to hear that they should stand in the library and do what amounts to a daily grind? I dream a day will come when dreamers will practice their arts having adventures in the planes, rather than being bored in the library. To better facilitate that, the library should be stripped of its utlility of restoring all focuses, and be like any other room where focus is drained by using arts. I should propose this to whoever has the power to make this change. The Alliance of the Eclipse issued a request to someone restructure the sphere hall; whoever that higher power is, may be able to remove this focus-restoring feature of the library. Wouldn't that be a great act of kindness I could do for the dreamers?

And I ponder, a DreamSeer's focus of insight should be about gathering knowledge and learning, not insipid, rote repetition of an art without context. Perhaps, just maybe, Liolira is wrong; perhaps a Seer can advance to Sphere 4 with Insight arts less than level 39. I made it this far with very few, if any, platted, so my goal will be this: To become a Sphere 4 dreamer with all his insight arts at level 38! I ponder if that should make stormy proud. TranceFlame will be particularly hard, since I have to meditate on all of my passion for mythology and the world into a single focus point and throw it out every time I do the art. That is what my "flame" is.

Are there more fun ways we could go about getting our arts to their peak?

Just something to ponder.
~A box jellyfish has no brain, but it has feelings and it has a soul~

~A merman who is in love with the ocean only thinks about water~
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Perram Riptide
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Posts: 31
Joined: Sun Feb 06, 2022 7:41 pm
Character Name(s): Perram

Re: More points to ponder

Post by Perram Riptide »

I've been pondering...

How do I know what dreamer to admire? My Insight tells me that a multi-colored halo, mastery of most or all foci, sphere nine, level 99 arts, many talismans and crests, having 300 years of seniority from the beginning of Lyra and associated with legendary figures of the time, and coming back to tell the tale of a villain's betrayal are all objective facts that signal the highest status, even eschewing the title "Elder" because it does not do justice to share the title if the rest can't compare.

Indeed, insight tells me these are qualities to look up to, that will protect and guide the city with strength, knowledge, and experience.

But Insight, although it is the focus for scholars and information, can be deceptive in its amoral acuity. Our Dreamsoul, though logically cloudy, may better guide our feelings.

I have met a dreamer with no such accolades, impressive titles, or observable status symbols, that my Dreamsoul beckoned to me, "this is someone I ought to know." I should revere such a dreamer not because they agree with me in all things, but for their independent mind. Their words inspire awe in me not because they relate facts and information or lore, but because they motivate me to ponder. This dreamer has retained a simple mind, when so many convolutions and trivialities are constantly fighting to succumb us all to Chaos.

I have been under the tutelage of a teacher with an imagination so vivid they can draw a sketch in the mind of a merman a concept of fire when no other dreamer could.

I have bonded with one who taught me that being a dreamer is not about the crest we bear, but what beats under it.

When I look back at the first kind of dreamer, they may claim their original focus was SoulMaster, yet it is evident they are not the master of their soul. Many great words come from them with little of substance to say, while condemning from speaking those we are in most need of hearing what is in their heart and mind. True nature reveals itself from double standards —Don't judge them, but they may judge openly. The compassion afforded to one's enemies — or the lack of it — illuminates the natural colors of one's heart camouflaged underneath the coats of ink painted on top by sentiments they give to the allies they serve. Their soul is exhibited by what they will comply and condone in others they have the power to stand up to; they refuse to intervene not because of the lawful reasons they say, but because they agree with the ideals of the perpetrators regardless of the ethics of their actions.

It seems the dreamer that should be a paragon is rendered unremarkable; not because of any apparent flaws in their character, but by the lack of them. Perhaps the sobering reality about the Master of All Trades, is that they are truly a Jack of None.

Just something to ponder.
~A box jellyfish has no brain, but it has feelings and it has a soul~

~A merman who is in love with the ocean only thinks about water~
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