Juho Pohjalainen's Blog: Pankarp - Posts Tagged "legacy"

We stand on the shoulders of giants.



Vast, green, and fertile – good earth to stand on, sit on, and root ourselves into. Many do just that, and never let go: they swing gently in the wind, smile in contentment, never even stop to wonder what lies under them, or how much they truly owe to the giant. Some of them may themselves grow great, one day, and grow new life on their own shoulders. But most of them remain small.

Others still, such as you - if you are here now - grow fully aware of their foundations. You uproot yourself, and you walk on these great shoulders. You look down into the clouds beyond the earth. At this stage you can never again simply root yourself back: you know too much.

Now you may shrug your shoulders and stay right here, accepting your place in the world, and the role of the giant propping you up. And that will be the end of that. You may grow, or not.

Or you may grow curious. You wonder just what is down below, beneath those clouds... just what is this giant himself standing on?

Or instead you may grow angry. You come to hold the opinion that this giant does not deserve one bit of all your reverence and worship: that the giant is in fact a fraud and must be discredited, denounced, and shunned. Perhaps it's because you've come to believe that the giant slouches, has a hunched back, or brittle bones. Or perhaps that the giant is mad, and will one day fall on his own. Or a whole number of other reasons and excuses.



If you're loud enough, some may come to follow you. They see where you're coming from: they've seen the same signs, or are easily convinced to see them by you now. Most likely, however, the vast majority of your peers simply ignore you: they owe enough to the giant to not be too bothered, though you may have gotten them uprooted and into the curious state mentioned above.

You may pick up a stick and go all the way to poke the giant's eye, but that is a lost cause. The giant cannot be felled that way: his roots lay deep, deep below, far beyond your reach. Most likely he won't even notice you.

To hell with this, you say. Already uprooted and still pissed, you decide to walk right to the edge of the shoulder and jump right down. If you were loud enough, perhaps you will get others to jump with you. Or you may have been one of the curious ones, and jump simply to see what you will land on.

Great perils await you here. You will float through the skies and the void, beyond the clouds, and you will get to see bizarre and disconnected visions. You may be lost here, and never again find root in anything. Or you may land on something, but it is dark and covered in mist... and you will wander and end up lost here instead.

But if you overcome these challenges and learn to see beyond the dark and dispel the mist, you will find a terrible truth: you have landed on another giant, far more vast and ancient than any you could ever have imagined. This is what the giant you yourself came from is standing on! You see others like him rooted here, some small, others bigger than even your own giant!



You may now reel with shock. Or perhaps you knew of this already, and can accept it.

So now what?

Was your grudge only with the giant you yourself started from, and jumped off of? If that is the case, then well enough: perhaps you may find fertile land here, and root yourself somewhere to the shoulders of this greater giant. You may one day grow as big as he is, and nod respectfully at him.

Or, now that you're down here, maybe you can go and strike that giant right into the roots, right into where it hurts! You may do more harm from here than from above... but the giant is still vast, and you still tiny. Perhaps if you yourself grew larger, you could meet the giant on his level, and punch him right in his stupid face.

Alternatively, perhaps your problem was with the giants as a whole, and you want to stand on the shoulders of no one at all? Or perhaps you were curious to begin with, and curious still to keep on going and see how far this can go? Then feel free to jump off again.

You should now be ready to the challenges you faced before: the voids, and the mist. You will likely find more ground – another shoulder, another forest of giants big and small. You may end up liking this giant, and root here, or you may keep on going, lower down, and then lower still.

But how low CAN you go?

One day, perhaps, you will come upon earth that simply does not end. Ground that keeps on going forever, without another cliff to jump down by. What does that mean? Does it mean that you have at last found the earth, and your quest is completed? Or does it mean that you stand on a truly primordial titan indeed, one whose girth you cannot begin to comprehend, let alone travel?

Either way, at least you've come pretty damn far down. You can look up in pride, at the feet of the giants you came from. You have likely grown up a fair bit now already, and perhaps if you keep on going, you can stand on the same level as them. And now you owe nothing to no one.

Or maybe you'd rather grab an axe and chop down the whole thing. Your choice.