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‘This is the curse, then, that we are so inclined to look ahead, ever ahead. As if the path before us should be any different from the one behind us.’ Aye, and it pays to remind me, every time I glance back. I really should stop doing that.
‘I need only look back to see what lies ahead.’
Mind bound to self, self to flesh, flesh to bone. As the Errant wills, we are a latticework of cages, and whatever flutters within knows but one freedom, and that is death.
And he had seen the manner in which such belief made the world simple, where all was divisible by the sharp cleaving of cold judgement, after which no mending was possible. He had seen such certainty, yet had never shared it.
they are masters only because the Indebted accept them as such. This is the poison of gold as the only measure of worth.
loyalty is not to be spoken of, and honour is to be endured. Whilst courage is to be survived. Those virtues, Chained One, belong to silence.’
Do not seek to find hope among your leaders. They are the repositories of poison. Their interest in you extends only so far as their ability to control you. From you, they seek duty and obedience, and they will ply you with the language of stirring faith. They seek followers, and woe to those who question, or voice challenge. ‘Civilization after civilization, it is the same. The world falls to tyranny with a whisper. The frightened are ever keen to bow to a perceived necessity, in the belief that necessity forces conformity, and conformity a certain stability. In a world shaped into
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‘Our manic accumulation of wealth,’ Kuru Qan went on. ‘Our headlong progress, as if motion was purpose and purpose inherently virtuous. Our lack of compassion, which we called being realistic. The extremity of our judgements, our self-righteousness – all a flight from death, Brys. All a vast denial smothered in semantics and euphemisms. Bravery and sacrifice, pathos and failure, as if life is a contest to be won or lost. As if death is the arbiter of meaning, the moment of final judgement, and above all else judgement is a thing to be delivered, not delivered unto.’
Release gets addictive, you see. It becomes a fixed behaviour, as destructive as any other. Keep repeating the exercise of grief and it loses meaning, it becomes rote, false, a game of self-delusion, self-indulgence. A way of never getting over anything, ever.’
As if true honesty belonged to solitude, since to be witnessed was to perform, and performance was inherently false since it invited expectation.
Walker and Wanderer, the distinction between them a subtle one of motivation.
You take your natural vices and call them virtues. Of which greed is the most despicable. That and betrayal of commonality. After all, whoever decided that competition is always and without exception a healthy attribute? Why that particular path to self-esteem? Your heel on the hand of the one below. This is worth something? Let me tell you, it’s worth nothing. Nothing lasting. Every monument that exists beyond the moment – no matter which king, emperor or warrior lays claim to it – is actually a testament to the common, to co-operation, to the plural rather than the singular.’
