Posts Tagged with Other Worlds

Making coffee not war…

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Hello from far far away. I'm keeping company with an under-sweetened cup of coffee and a view of the inn that's- similarly not the best but reliably not bad. Anyway, I'd rather write from here than some terran hotel window overlooking a wet grey interstate. (Yes, I'm sure not all your vistas flood their window panes with tones of cement.)

Anyway, now that I've upset you, let me catch you up on things. The agitators I mentioned before seem to have gotten bored and moved on to something else. A few people will still approach me with the admonition that I should just “put it down”. I smile and nod vaguely. The status quo serves me fine for now.

I mention it though because all this recent non-violence thought has me wondering about the matter. As I said before, these folk just assume the beast is not sentient. If that were the case, then maybe release or put-down would be my only options. If not, then since I can't release a violent beast upon the townsfolk, maybe neither would be an option.

Now, I’ve slain thousands of monsters, including hundreds of dragons (just over two-hundred to be precise but it sounds better to just say “hundreds”). I’ve never felt bad about the slayings. It was always self-defense or in defense of others, well as far as I can recall anyway. I’m no expert on the philosophy of violence, but my conscience remains pretty clear on those cases. Mostly. Actually, when I learned of talking animals, that may have changed something. I haven’t even tried to slay a dragon since, so I have to wonder if, on some level, the dry spell is more than coincidence. I could stand to explore your realm's thought on non-violence. It might help me sort this out.

But not yet. My coffee is empty, and I need a refill. Feel free to buy me a cup.

-Pen

Anticipating the mob…

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Greetings from far far away. I hope this finds you well. I am in the inn, in between doings, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t really filled you all in on the whole monster situation, so I’m taking a quick moment to remedy that.

I don’t know how much you remember from my last note, but a few townsfolk were wagging their tongues ignorantly, and about me. Two poorly bandied accounts stood out. The first had me running silly from a beast that I ended up capturing accidentally. Ridiculous. When I run it is awesome, and when I capture, it is epic, not haphazardly. Now, the second account had me just discovering the beast, and- well I’m ok with that image. Anyway, I’m not confirming either. I only mention it to contextualize the following:

The townsfolk may decide that they need to trespass in order to kill the beast. All based on hearsay! No! It ain’t right!!! I know. Maybe I needn’t worry since it would be dumb of them to think that I have a mighty beast handy and then to come looking for trouble. But then again, I can’t count on people acting smart, especially in groups. That would be dumb of me. (It would also be democracy… but I digress.)

As for killing the alleged beast, I think the first account/rumor affords them a better case. One could try to say that since the beast was trapped, there’s an obligation to either free it or put it out of its misery and that since freeing it would endanger others…. well you can connect the dots. But this forgets that the collapse was not my doing! And it assumes the beast is not sentient. That brings up questions about its rights and ultimately makes the right course less clear. (Again, I’m not granting that there is any truth to the story. at all.) This all looks more like an attempt for prying eyes to break into my land under the guise of justice… I guess you find out who your friends are.

One other thing that troubles me in all of this… Actually, next time. I have to get back to the daily grind. Literally. The mill stopped, and I have to investigate.

-Pen

Gambler not included…

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Hello good people of terra! It’s a beautiful day here. I imagine it probably runs the gamut over there.

I just realized I’ve really never explained the point of these letters. So, I’m taking few minutes to remedy that. You see, I enjoy it, but also I wanted an enduring record of my doings, and strangely, your internet seems better than stone for that. In my case, this also keeps the records safe from any prying eyes in my world, and I like that too. So, I hope you don’t mind. What am I kidding? If you do mind, I don’t care much about your opinion. It’s the internet. Get over it.

That being said, there is news. I'd like to address reports being made around here, reports speaking of some alleged recent discovery. According to one of them, it’s a labrynthine network that reminded me of home. So, I appropriated the unclaimed land. On this account, it was later while doing some routine critter control (hunting in the wild) that I encountered an enormous beast. It being suddenly upon me and everywhere around me, my animal-instincts forgot smarter recourses, and I just ran. Remembering the caverns, I lead it to a massive nearby opening in order to lose it underground, and when I reemerged elsewhere, I learned that it had triggered some kind of collapse and is now trapped inside.

According to another report: I just discovered a dragon at its home in the caverns and I won’t tell anyone about it because of the gold.

There are probably other reports too.

I’m not dignifying any rumors with an answer. I only mention all this in case people call for the (alleged) beast’s death. First of all, I would never allow such a thing. Second of all, there is no substantiation to any of these stories. Thirdly, I guess their gastonery is the less egregious for never having seen Beauty and the Beast.

I do want to elaborate on all this, but it’ll have to wait for another time. It’s getting dark, and the aroma from the kitchen here smells delicious. If I hurry, I bet I can talk someone into whipping me up a dinner-sandwich (aka “gambler”) for the road.

Have a great one.

-Pen

A Few Meaningful Lines…

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Greetings from far far away. I hope this finds you well. I’m sitting in the inn. Heh. I say the inn, like you know it. It’s not what you’d expect. Sure, right now it’s dark and moody, but during the day… well, it’s comfortable anyway. Durable. Kind of like if a Cracker Barrel and a tavern had a baby; that grew up to serve alcohol, practical wilderness wares, and weaponry. And if it played simpler music… live. (Not always better music, though.)

Now in Chora, that inn had some class. Of course, it was kind of a café, but – Come to think of it there’s a painting of it hanging up in that building just across the square! Oh, you’d like it too. It's like you’re peering out a window at a drizzled courtyard that just sighs like a lazy Sunday afternoon. Well, except for a few flowers dancing happily with their raindrops. Oh, and there's the musicians near the window gently bouncing the room's serenity… and, there's the barkeep drying something while affectionately noticing someone out across the way, behind another window reading a book. It’s really something. I guess you'd have to see it.

Anyway, I’m here, just trying to drop a few meaningful lines since one is supposed to be regular with their correspondence, and with all the adventures of late, that has not been easy. All I can say about the adventures though is that there’s this cave, and there’s something inside it, and that something wasn’t very happy the last I checked. (I’m so going back to check again when I’m done writing this! It’s going to be awesome!) (Rumors about my running scared and trapping it in there are completely unfounded. Like, there’s totally zero evidence.)

Well, this seems like a good place to stop for now. Thanks for your attention. Maybe next time, I’ll have to write less about the realm and talk more about terran stuff. “Terra” sounds much better don't you think? For my use anyway. (“Hey terrans!” > “Greetings earthlings!”) Yeah, I’m sure you understand.

Well, later.

-Pen

Stay free

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Good day, terrans. I hope things are well, despite the ever-negative news over there. As for me, I worked on a long-standing project and then ran a few errands for someone in the inn. So now, I’m paid, refueling my belly, and thinking. Recent conversations on free-will are on my mind, and I like it, even if some of the banter was a bit awkward.

Yes, awkward. It’s strange for me, hearing free-will denied publicly. For a long time, whenever I heard that denial, it operated as an excuse, used to justify one's behavior. The criminal cited fate at the thought of reform in order to justify his staying the course. A scrooge said the stars of the poor couldn’t really be changed so why bother? The idea uglied its confessor and embarrassed him in polite conversation.

Frankly, it isn’t a trivial mistake either. Free-will is part of what makes us special, more than animals, so determinism gets it wrong bigly. It mocks us and not just us. The dull mechanistic outlook paints everything dull and mechanistic. It grey-washes out all the humanity, love and magic.

It's bad for you, too. The more one believes they aren’t free, the more it’s kind of true for that person. People who believe they are wed to their course are less likely to muster the will to change it. Believing all your choices amount to influence, has a yielding to influence… influence, and that opens one up to manipulation. But it dehumanizes in another way too. Steps toward animalizing people are steps to getting them treated like animals. The police don’t need any help in that, and society falls apart fine on its own without help in the process.

So yeah, it wouldn’t be good if a popular holy book were thought to teach such stuff. Such an unfortunate situation would render contrary (and legit) readings golden. (Why set the book against the essence of humanity if you don’t have to?) That's part of why I like this molinism thing. It’s interesting and all yes, and it has the added perk of rescuing vital good sense from the nefarious clutches of a misreading.

I could go on but not now. The day is getting on, and I’m going to explore the realm a bit. Maybe get a cookie. Thanks for the fun conversation terrans.

-Pen