Kindle the Flame, but do not feed the inferno. Oftentimes strength comes from having the ability to do great violence and knowing that to do so would be wrong.
18 Excruciating Patience Earned Through Many Lectures of the Blue Flame
We believe she may have strayed onto the path of Prim entirely on accident. Although that path was lain out before her to some degree when my siblings conversed earlier, I doubt my sister has taught her much of this path. I pray for the peace of the king.
Not sure if I’ve said it here, but I have said laboriously and repeatedly my own opinions on strength, as well as why I prefer to always carry a shield. Violence isn’t strength, not as such. Many claim strength by killing others, but that isn’t strength, that’s just violence. And any number of fools can tell you that anyone can be violent. Strength is not about who you can kill.
Strength is about who you can save. Who you can spare. Who you can let live. Strength is “I could kill you, a million times a million times, before my bangle hits the ground, but I choose not to.” Strength is choosing the option where everyone lives. Strength is the ability to stare *death itself* in the eye, or in the void pits where eyes ought be, and declaring “No, you shall do no more work today.”
In his vaunted performance earlier today, the demiurge Solomon David presented a great and incredible feat of violence, and in doing proved that he was as weak as any common man. Violent as a demiurge, violence befitting the name, absolutely. Strong? Never. Not even for a minute. Were he strong, not a life would have been taken, not a drop of blood spilled, by any of his foes.
Of all the names I’ve heard, Kassardis was by far the strongest. Remember Samura. To reach Heaven through Violence is a fool’s errand, and Throne is full to bursting with fools. To abandon seeking Heaven is to die by the roadside meaninglessly, and worse still. Reach Heaven though Strength.
Enlightenment is about embracing non dual reality. In the Bhagavad-gita (and Meti’s sword manual), it is taught that one must be thoroughly divorced from the outcome of one’s actions. Ethics are important but It’s not about good or evil per se. In one of the early parables it says a person attained royalty because they weren’t seeking it (or something like that).
Indeed. True Royalty is:
Pure,
Luminous,
Free,
Immutable,
Unique,
Beyond subject and object,
Beyond thoughts, beliefs, judgments and concepts,
Empty,
Open,
Peaceful,
Marvelously clear,
Whole.
Seeking True Royalty is like looking everywhere for the scopes that rest already on your nose, or rummaging through the Heavens and the Earth to find the priceless pearl you wear on your brow. And when you discover that IT was always already there, you have gained nothing, attained nothing… aside from the realization that (tag) you are IT.
Surely it is harder to spare all lives then it is to take them, but if that is all you can do then you are little better than those who are bound by violence.
No, true strength is the ability to choose both your outcome and your method. To slaughter or to save or to pass on unconcerned, as fits your desire, is the mark of true strength and one who possesses it will always defeat one who does not. After all, if you may choose your course and your would be opponent is bound to a single path, then you need merely pick one that they cannot follow.
Solomon David is mighty in his violence and I suspect Gog Agog saves many a life, in her own fashion, but both are trapped by their own methods. Allison, it seems, has begun to grasp for the power to choose.
This marks a clear misunderstanding of the nature of strength. Strength is not violence, nor salvation, nor a thing which may he measured. Strength is a declaration of magnitude.
Strength is not a trait a man can possess, but a description of a trait. A man can be strong in violence, strong in physical might, strong in conviction, or strong in anything else. Even strong in wisdom or compassion. If yhe magnitude of this trait is sufficient to dominate the world around them, that trait is “strong.”
This is the truth of “strength,” that a man is only “strong” when they choose to commit themselves to embodying these aspects.
Unfortunately a good chunk of that o.j. vanishes after taxes, given how we switched over to a juice-based economy after the Fall of the Vault and Mammon’s precious coins became next to worthless.
“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”
Foolish Last-of-Pen, Favored of the Impure Snow Wolf
I pray that my opponents never love me the way that I love myself, for from a stranger I may always hope for mercy, but to myself? I know I give none to myself.
Eh. I found that line a bit silly in Ender’s Game and I still do.
It’s perfectly possible to understand someone well, to understand what they want, why they want it, and how they came to stand in opposition to you. You may even judge that they were perfectly reasonable and justified in all of those things. You might sympathize with their plight and bear them no ill will for opposing you.
However, doing all of that does not mean you need to agree with them or even slightly like them.
Huh, I always interpreted it completely differently, but also way before I knew Card was a dick.
I’ve always thought it’s the same concept as “grok”, love isn’t liking someone a lot, it’s truly understanding them. To truly understand someone is to know them is to love them. That doesn’t mean you can’t stand at odds, fight, or even kill them. To love someone doesn’t mean you agree with them, or even like them.
Sometimes people kill someone they love. Medical reasons, war, self defense, madness, even by accident. It’s the most painful thing a person can do. For Ender, every time he kills, he is killing someone he loves, and it’s why he gives up killing.
This, this is not Strength. Strength means being able to lift a couch on your own. Strength means to lick doorknobs without hesitation. Strength means to obfuscate the meaning of strength so that the mortals do not figure it out and give you a wedgie.
Strength definitely does not mean to retaliate against oppressive regimes. I know this because 2 Michael told me that, and he is a fair and just–
Wait, didn’t Zoss achieve royalty through the conquering of Throne and the interrogation of Metatron-1? Did not Maya claim “reach Heaven through violence”? How come AL-YS-UN is taking a step towards it through the lack of it? I should have been paying more attention during the lessons….
The answer is in the Cycle.
Zoss earned his throne through blood and slaughter, and was cast off it by the same. Maya and Meti alike know that violence is a useless thing and that committing to it without thought will earn nothing but more violence – and neither of them have attained Royalty, anyway.
For that matter, look at the Demiurges. Mottom? Desperately sacrificing women to her tree-husband for immortality yet loathing it altogether. Mammon? Blind, senile, and painfully aware his greed-quest destroyed everything he cared about, even the value of his plunder. Jadis? Sealed in a block and wanting to die. Jagganoth? Is taking Strength through Violence to its logical conclusion by annihilating the multiverse. Incubus? He who lacks the legitimacy accorded by his peers who only understand Strength through Violence, seeks revenge by aiding the Pankrator. Solomon David? Constantly seeking a heir yet disappointed, because he expects someone who can demonstrate even an appreciable fraction of his violent strength, yet nobody in this tournament could possibly be.
Zoss and A-YLS-SUN are True Royalty, for they have learned from this mistake, their mistakes.
“We have little to worry from a king who has abandoned his kingdom,” Solomon said.
“There is only one further along than me on the path to Royalty. The great lord of creation, the Conquering King,” Solomon also said.
How odd that so mighty a human can’t perceive this connection.
But royalty always follows established precedent: all bow before them, until none will do so. Even when royalty has slaughtered all and turned water to blood, there is one king left alone who is subject only to himself. His kingdom is a small pile of dirt beneath his feet.
It takes a lot of brute force to smash an apple flat, but a child can cut one into tiny pieces, even into mush, with a knife. It’s not about sheer amount of strength, but how you apply and wield the power you do have. I think this is what it means.
More questions allow one to get a better idea about the shape of the truth the liar so desperately wants to obscure. Come at it from enough angles, and while it cannot be directly viewed, its shape and nature can be surmised.
Pfft. All strength is a form of violence. No struggle is won without taking something from the other side. Even when you give them something, you take away who they were without it and what they might have become in pursuit of it.
The first, of course, because betting dividends are paid on a per-fight basis. Truly, this metaphor extends further than meets the eye. Luckily for me, I traded my eye for a delicious bowl of noodles a few decades ago. Best deal I ever made.
Curious, curious. For Al-YISUN to forsake the blood-soaked paths of the demiurges could represent a divergence from the cycle. But does such a change represent a new beginning or an end to all…or even both?
Whichever the result, it shall be fascinating to observe.
Turn the wheel on its edge and you will bear witness to the only name of God. There is no division in nature, the infinite is one with the finite. To separate one from all is the first and final sanctioned action.
Violence is not everything, a truth I must acknowledge despite being stained a myriad of colors in my bloody work. To kill those who must be killed is a different path than to kill those who can be killed, and I am glad to see the Rising King take her first step along it. Let us hope that she realizes what her criteria for ‘must’ is soon.
One hopes Allison shall remember this dream and possible epiphany when she wakes up (Incubus manifests in dreams, but also Cio isn’t in the cell).
Self-confidence, energy, and crackling white atum flame starting to come back. Use the Art, make a good barista ristretto out of nowhere, and let’s get to work!
The demiurges endure. We shall not see the generation that won power by force pass it to one secure in its place and capable of relaxing. How, I wonder, will AL-YISUN change the cycle.
Achieving Enlightenment is a paradox. You can cut away your attachments to free yourself of your burdens but your blade of want becomes heavier and more constrictive with each cut. True Enlightment is found in the deepest delirium. The kind where you do not lose your grip on reality but reality loses it grip on you.
Oh All-yis-un, you’ve come so far since those innocent heady days of seeing the world through ignorant eyes. It seems as you have left your mark on the World, the World leaves its mark on you.
Kindle the Flame, but do not feed the inferno. Oftentimes strength comes from having the ability to do great violence and knowing that to do so would be wrong.
We believe she may have strayed onto the path of Prim entirely on accident. Although that path was lain out before her to some degree when my siblings conversed earlier, I doubt my sister has taught her much of this path. I pray for the peace of the king.
Not sure if I’ve said it here, but I have said laboriously and repeatedly my own opinions on strength, as well as why I prefer to always carry a shield. Violence isn’t strength, not as such. Many claim strength by killing others, but that isn’t strength, that’s just violence. And any number of fools can tell you that anyone can be violent. Strength is not about who you can kill.
Strength is about who you can save. Who you can spare. Who you can let live. Strength is “I could kill you, a million times a million times, before my bangle hits the ground, but I choose not to.” Strength is choosing the option where everyone lives. Strength is the ability to stare *death itself* in the eye, or in the void pits where eyes ought be, and declaring “No, you shall do no more work today.”
In his vaunted performance earlier today, the demiurge Solomon David presented a great and incredible feat of violence, and in doing proved that he was as weak as any common man. Violent as a demiurge, violence befitting the name, absolutely. Strong? Never. Not even for a minute. Were he strong, not a life would have been taken, not a drop of blood spilled, by any of his foes.
Of all the names I’ve heard, Kassardis was by far the strongest. Remember Samura. To reach Heaven through Violence is a fool’s errand, and Throne is full to bursting with fools. To abandon seeking Heaven is to die by the roadside meaninglessly, and worse still. Reach Heaven though Strength.
Enlightenment is about embracing non dual reality. In the Bhagavad-gita (and Meti’s sword manual), it is taught that one must be thoroughly divorced from the outcome of one’s actions. Ethics are important but It’s not about good or evil per se. In one of the early parables it says a person attained royalty because they weren’t seeking it (or something like that).
Indeed. True Royalty is:
Pure,
Luminous,
Free,
Immutable,
Unique,
Beyond subject and object,
Beyond thoughts, beliefs, judgments and concepts,
Empty,
Open,
Peaceful,
Marvelously clear,
Whole.
Seeking True Royalty is like looking everywhere for the scopes that rest already on your nose, or rummaging through the Heavens and the Earth to find the priceless pearl you wear on your brow. And when you discover that IT was always already there, you have gained nothing, attained nothing… aside from the realization that (tag) you are IT.
I believe you are half right.
Surely it is harder to spare all lives then it is to take them, but if that is all you can do then you are little better than those who are bound by violence.
No, true strength is the ability to choose both your outcome and your method. To slaughter or to save or to pass on unconcerned, as fits your desire, is the mark of true strength and one who possesses it will always defeat one who does not. After all, if you may choose your course and your would be opponent is bound to a single path, then you need merely pick one that they cannot follow.
Solomon David is mighty in his violence and I suspect Gog Agog saves many a life, in her own fashion, but both are trapped by their own methods. Allison, it seems, has begun to grasp for the power to choose.
Consider: the undefeated swordsman must be exceptionally poor.
well said indeed! Solomon has power certainly, but not strength.
Many are they who have conquered empires but never conquered themselves. Are they strong?
This marks a clear misunderstanding of the nature of strength. Strength is not violence, nor salvation, nor a thing which may he measured. Strength is a declaration of magnitude.
Strength is not a trait a man can possess, but a description of a trait. A man can be strong in violence, strong in physical might, strong in conviction, or strong in anything else. Even strong in wisdom or compassion. If yhe magnitude of this trait is sufficient to dominate the world around them, that trait is “strong.”
This is the truth of “strength,” that a man is only “strong” when they choose to commit themselves to embodying these aspects.
hehehe nipple piercings
The line bisecting recursive infinity.
so not just nipple piercings, Symbolic Nipple Piercings
Ding ding! We have a winner! You win enlightenment!!
Go on to the bonus round and you can win double enlightenment and a lifetime supply of orange juice.
Most contestants only bother with the orange juice, though.
Unfortunately a good chunk of that o.j. vanishes after taxes, given how we switched over to a juice-based economy after the Fall of the Vault and Mammon’s precious coins became next to worthless.
Bogus, we all know they’re hoarding the Yum Juice for themselves
incoming tiresome aesop about violence
“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”
I pray that my opponents never love me the way that I love myself, for from a stranger I may always hope for mercy, but to myself? I know I give none to myself.
Eh. I found that line a bit silly in Ender’s Game and I still do.
It’s perfectly possible to understand someone well, to understand what they want, why they want it, and how they came to stand in opposition to you. You may even judge that they were perfectly reasonable and justified in all of those things. You might sympathize with their plight and bear them no ill will for opposing you.
However, doing all of that does not mean you need to agree with them or even slightly like them.
It was a weirdly preachy line that always seemed out of place in the book whose protagonist murdered a kid and then wiped out an entire species.
It finally clicked when I learned that Orson Card is extremely bigoted and religious irl.
“Do as I say not as I do” indeed.
Huh, I always interpreted it completely differently, but also way before I knew Card was a dick.
I’ve always thought it’s the same concept as “grok”, love isn’t liking someone a lot, it’s truly understanding them. To truly understand someone is to know them is to love them. That doesn’t mean you can’t stand at odds, fight, or even kill them. To love someone doesn’t mean you agree with them, or even like them.
Sometimes people kill someone they love. Medical reasons, war, self defense, madness, even by accident. It’s the most painful thing a person can do. For Ender, every time he kills, he is killing someone he loves, and it’s why he gives up killing.
Meti’s sword manual is the best Aesop about nonviolence, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.
Metti is the patron saint of non violence and I will feed your body to the dogs if you disagree
idk it’s helping my trauma, which really didn’t like solomon david
why make a labour of love like this if you had nothing to say
of course there is something abaddon would like to say
The meaning of strength.
“Strike hard, strike fast, no mercy.”
This, this is not Strength. Strength means being able to lift a couch on your own. Strength means to lick doorknobs without hesitation. Strength means to obfuscate the meaning of strength so that the mortals do not figure it out and give you a wedgie.
Strength definitely does not mean to retaliate against oppressive regimes. I know this because 2 Michael told me that, and he is a fair and just–
wait
Wait, didn’t Zoss achieve royalty through the conquering of Throne and the interrogation of Metatron-1? Did not Maya claim “reach Heaven through violence”? How come AL-YS-UN is taking a step towards it through the lack of it? I should have been paying more attention during the lessons….
The answer is in the Cycle.
Zoss earned his throne through blood and slaughter, and was cast off it by the same. Maya and Meti alike know that violence is a useless thing and that committing to it without thought will earn nothing but more violence – and neither of them have attained Royalty, anyway.
Maya is a greater king than any fool who has ever sat on a throne.
For that matter, look at the Demiurges. Mottom? Desperately sacrificing women to her tree-husband for immortality yet loathing it altogether. Mammon? Blind, senile, and painfully aware his greed-quest destroyed everything he cared about, even the value of his plunder. Jadis? Sealed in a block and wanting to die. Jagganoth? Is taking Strength through Violence to its logical conclusion by annihilating the multiverse. Incubus? He who lacks the legitimacy accorded by his peers who only understand Strength through Violence, seeks revenge by aiding the Pankrator. Solomon David? Constantly seeking a heir yet disappointed, because he expects someone who can demonstrate even an appreciable fraction of his violent strength, yet nobody in this tournament could possibly be.
Zoss and A-YLS-SUN are True Royalty, for they have learned from this mistake, their mistakes.
“We have little to worry from a king who has abandoned his kingdom,” Solomon said.
“There is only one further along than me on the path to Royalty. The great lord of creation, the Conquering King,” Solomon also said.
How odd that so mighty a human can’t perceive this connection.
To follow established precedent is the antithesis of Royalty.
But royalty always follows established precedent: all bow before them, until none will do so. Even when royalty has slaughtered all and turned water to blood, there is one king left alone who is subject only to himself. His kingdom is a small pile of dirt beneath his feet.
The rules of Royalty can be remade by those who possess it, like anything else.
And is Royalty not ipso-facto a vain pursuit?
Red sky in morning, Incubus warning.
Red sky at night, *something, something* FIGHT
Red sky at night, test your might.
It takes a lot of brute force to smash an apple flat, but a child can cut one into tiny pieces, even into mush, with a knife. It’s not about sheer amount of strength, but how you apply and wield the power you do have. I think this is what it means.
Some would say that the only way to peace is through the sword.
Others would say that the sword is an ugly piece of metal, and its peace is an ugly thing as well.
The greatest Cutting art, is the ability to cut away the sword from your kingdom, without exposing it to danger.
Ask a different question, hear a different lie. Maybe a better one.
More questions allow one to get a better idea about the shape of the truth the liar so desperately wants to obscure. Come at it from enough angles, and while it cannot be directly viewed, its shape and nature can be surmised.
Pfft. All strength is a form of violence. No struggle is won without taking something from the other side. Even when you give them something, you take away who they were without it and what they might have become in pursuit of it.
Yes yes, everybody’s story ends the same way.
Then he died, and the Lord of The Blood Harvest lapped up his life force.
I think it’s what someone does before that’s really interesting, if only to provide a slightly different flavor to my cup.
Who is stronger, the the one who wins every fight, or the one who never needs to fight at all.
I know which one I’d rather bet on.
The first, of course, because betting dividends are paid on a per-fight basis. Truly, this metaphor extends further than meets the eye. Luckily for me, I traded my eye for a delicious bowl of noodles a few decades ago. Best deal I ever made.
The wise sage plucks his eyes and says, “At last, I see”
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” – Salvor Hardin in Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation”
Nay, for the incompetent it is the first refuge.
It is only for the competent that violence forms the last refuge.
Now behold the demiurges and judge them.
You can’t escape violence, neither is it the only thing.
Curious, curious. For Al-YISUN to forsake the blood-soaked paths of the demiurges could represent a divergence from the cycle. But does such a change represent a new beginning or an end to all…or even both?
Whichever the result, it shall be fascinating to observe.
The Wheel is a circle, but the “I” that bisects that circle has a clear beginning and end.
Turn the wheel on its edge and you will bear witness to the only name of God. There is no division in nature, the infinite is one with the finite. To separate one from all is the first and final sanctioned action.
Allison has never looked lovelier than she does on this page. Thoughtfulness is becoming on her.
Violence is not everything, a truth I must acknowledge despite being stained a myriad of colors in my bloody work. To kill those who must be killed is a different path than to kill those who can be killed, and I am glad to see the Rising King take her first step along it. Let us hope that she realizes what her criteria for ‘must’ is soon.
All against all… what a lonely existence.
One is the most boring of numbers.
So says YISUN. Or said. Or would have said.
It’s clear most of the Seven aren’t satisfied with their station, however high it is.
A mad existence indeed.
One hopes Allison shall remember this dream and possible epiphany when she wakes up (Incubus manifests in dreams, but also Cio isn’t in the cell).
Self-confidence, energy, and crackling white atum flame starting to come back. Use the Art, make a good barista ristretto out of nowhere, and let’s get to work!
The demiurges endure. We shall not see the generation that won power by force pass it to one secure in its place and capable of relaxing. How, I wonder, will AL-YISUN change the cycle.
Oblivion flashback.
(“Hear that? The guards are coming! For you! hahaha!”)
(From the next cell over): Hey, you. You’re finally awake.
“You were dreaming. Not even last night’s storm could wake you.”
The righteous Queen knows when her authority is best invested in another.
Achieving Enlightenment is a paradox. You can cut away your attachments to free yourself of your burdens but your blade of want becomes heavier and more constrictive with each cut. True Enlightment is found in the deepest delirium. The kind where you do not lose your grip on reality but reality loses it grip on you.
Kill not the billions without, but the demons within.
Nice one!
*Slow Clap*
Remember!
Kill Six Billion Demons is a name, not a command!
The heir is not the swordsman, but the sword itself!
Oh All-yis-un, you’ve come so far since those innocent heady days of seeing the world through ignorant eyes. It seems as you have left your mark on the World, the World leaves its mark on you.
Reach Heaven Through Something Other Than Violence
Royalty is an occasional cutting motion.