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pyrrhesia · 2 years

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FF14 Write ‘22 - Lovely, Dark and Deep

The first of three.

It was important to stay in touch. It was important to keep community. The three viera sat perched in the highest boughs of the canopy. Lanky, raw-boned Thrjs clutched onto the trunk with what passed for timidity among them. Short, wiry Kjva squatted, alert to danger, a sturdy recurve bow close to hand. Elegantly vespine Mrdja sprawled, idly shining an apple with a thumb between bites, her posture suggesting no twist of fate could be so cruel as to send her tumbling to the floor. This was a special place, and it was theirs. Decades to roam the woods had meant a bored crew of apprentices had been able to find the best view of the sunset, where the warm orange glow raked across the leaves as it peeked down underneath the hill-line. It was beautiful. A sight one could never tire of, shoulder to shoulder with the friends you had known for a lesser race's lifetime. And... yet. Thrjs giggled, seemingly at nothing, but Mrdja could sense it was in her direction. Mrdja looked over, askance. "What?" A mote of impatience bled through. She never liked being the butt of the joke. That was a task she much preferred to delegate. "You did it again." "Did what again?" "So that means I win, right, Kjva?" "It isn't fair," griped Kjva. "You're her mate. Of course you notice the little things." "Then why did you think you knew better, hm?" "What's this about?" Mrdja asked, head darting between the two. Thrjs gave her an indulgent smile. "You sighed again." "Again?" "You always do. These days. Whenever we come here," Thrjs' gesture was thoroughly unnecessary, "the moment the sun comes down the other side of the valley, you... 'ahhhh'." "Thrjs! That's obscene!" "Not like that! It's a sigh," insisted Thrjs, petulance starting to bleed in. "It's true," said Kjva. "As if you're looking for an answer." It was unusually profound, for Kjva. Both the others looked to her, and even she looked surprised at herself. "Answers?" repeated Thrjs. "What can be the question, if the answer is over the valley?" "I don't know," said Kjva, the philosopher. "There's nothing over there. Nothing worth knowing," said Thrjs. Mrdja smirked. "What?" Thrjs looked over. "It sounds like you're trying to convince yourself," said Mrdja. A mistake. Their eyes were back on her. "I," said Thrjs icily, "am not." "Really?" Surprise slipped into Mrdja's tone. "I mean... can you... you don't really believe that. In your heart of hearts. Do you?" "I do." Thrjs' heels were dug in, now. She was even forgetting that she was supposed to be skittish around these heights. Kjva looked anxiously between the two of them, wanting to be anywhere but between the two of them. "The mayflies are cruel and venal and irrelevant. And blind to their place in the world, too. Always striving. No matter what has to die." Mrdja could not hold her tongue. "You know them well, eh, salve-maker?" "I am a mere herbalist, yes. Which is why it's so ridiculous I'm having to talk sense into you, of all people!" Mrdja scoffed. "'Sense', you call this--" "Ljda will not live forever, Miri. Someday, you will become the custodian of these lands. Will you have us abandon them?" "Of course not!" "Or will you abandon us?" Mrdja flinched as if struck. But the moment of genuine pain that cut to the bone passed in a flash, replaced by that hollow mask of wounded dignity. Kjva extended what she thought was an olive branch. "There can be no question of that," she said. "You were chosen for a reason. Ljda's judgement cannot be questioned..." "I've put my duties aside long enough, for your sakes," snapped Mrdja. "But I shan't fritter more time away, here." "Miri, wait," said Thrjs, and extended a hand, but Mrdja was already gone, leaping elegantly down from branch to branch.

Wind rustled through the trees. Never quite the same, twice. If you listened - truly, listened - you could hear the subtle difference in the ways the winds could sweep through the leaves. You could find ways to distract yourself for centuries, here, where Mrdja's shoulders shook gently, and not all from the briskness of the breeze. She did not The newcomer's sardonic chuckle would have identified her before her arrival, but the Word had furnished Mrdja a thousand ways to discern Ljda without that. The tread of her feet on the forest floor, even the way the wind swept between her calves. "I thought I would find you here." "And so you have, Ljda." "We of the wood are all creatures of habit. And I was there when you were born." Ljda chuckled. "I would like to think I know you better than most, my apprentice." "Mm." "Since you discovered this clearing... this is where you have come, whenever you've thought you needed to be alone." Though that was not precisely the word. One could never be alone, in the grove. So long as one heard the Wood, and only outcasts could not. "And, most of the time," Ljda said, sitting by her unresisting apprentice's side on the broad grey stone, "you have been correct! And I have been thankful enough to be rid of you, from time to time. You get so insufferable when you are restless." The power of Mrdja's sulk could be felt in distant galaxies. "But," said Ljda, her slender hand resting on Mrdja's shoulder, "I do not think it is right for you. Now. There are some things you must hear." "I'm not going to abandon my duty," said Mrdja, her voice thick. "No?" If Mrdja had been less caught up in her own head, she'd have caught the amusement in Ljda's tone. But then, had she been less caught up in her own head, she'd scarcely have been Mrdja. "Thrjs must have come to see you. Didn't she?" "Oh, yes. Your partner was trembling throughout." Ljda chuckled softly. "She is very brave for one so skittish. A remarkable woman." "Hmph! She doesn't... she lacks imagination." "Does she?" "She thinks that it's sinful just to think of the lands beyond! But it can't be, can it? There is no harm in, in thinking. In looking, either! For if we were not meant to look, then the Wood would wall us in, would it not?" "It might. Then again, that may be crediting it too much." "Regardless. You must know I am devoted to the training you've given me." "Oh, yes. A brilliant student, Mrdja, that cannot be taken from you." "And I don't intend to squander it." "I know you'd never do that." "Then... then..." Mrdja wracked her brain. Now she was the one who seemed to lack imagination. "Then why are you here?" "Please, apprentice. Get your head out of your knees and look at me." Mrdja did, and saw that Ljda was smiling. She did not resist as her master reached across with a thumb and gently wiped away the moisture from her velvet cheeks. "Thrjs cried, too," she said, softly. "She worries that a woman she dearly loves is a bad viera. She fears that more than being without you." Mrdja had enough presence about her to look hurt. "Listen to me. You are many things, Mrdja. You are arrogant, self-centred and easily wounded by the slightest perceived cut. But you are not, and you can never be, a bad viera. I know you would suffer eternally in the confines of the village, doing your duty to the Wood and to your people." Mrdja nodded. The tears were starting to come back. "And you would suffer," repeated Ljda, softly. "Always looking to the horizon. Always wondering, 'what if'... ?" The idea of it cut to the bone. "I would do it," she said, raspily. "Because I must." "Hah! And there's the arrogance, again." Mrdja's tears were interrupted by confusion. She screwed her nose. "Eh?" she said at last, intelligently. "You are my chosen successor, yes. But do I look on the brink of death? I can train another. One better-suited to the task." "But that could take--" "Do I look on the brink of the veil, Mrdja? I will not be taken before it is my time. The Wood will not let me go, if it would truly be the end for this village. I know you would serve well, Mrdja, that is why I chose you. But you are not the only one who can. And while sometimes, yes, I may want to clip your ears, I could never, truly, wish you harm. And there could be no harm greater to you, I think, than to let you trap yourself here in the name of duty." At last, at long last, Mrdja allowed herself to hear what Ljda was truly saying. "You think I should... you really think I should go?" "I do." "Could I ever return? I know the law of the Wood and the Word, but--" "No." One word. Flat, cold, harder than the stone they sat on. "But. Travellers, they sometimes--" "On the fringes of the Wood, yes. And almost coming home is worse than never reaching it. You will understand, I'm sure, someday. Whether the hard way, or not." Mrdja shivered. That made it starker. That made it final. ... Yet, she had lived here more than eighty years already. What new was there, really, to bring her back? What kept her happy? And she found that, after all, it was not so difficult a choice. She needed only permission, not clarity. Slowly, Mrdja nodded. "Thrjs?" "She will... not understand. But she will recover. And, I think, find someone with whom she can be happier, herself. Someone whose eyes are not cast towards the horizon, hm?" Another nod. "Have strength," said Ljda. briskly. "Best be off tomorrow, before you lose your resolve. We can't have you breaking down in front of the whole village, can we?" "The whole... ?" Treacherous memory flooded back. She remembered the last to leave. The Wood had told her. The Wood had told them all. A branch had snapped, weakening the tree. As she had watched the outcast go, she remembered hating her. But she could not remember the name. "But you won't be forgotten," Ljda said. "Not by anyone who matters to you. The Wood's thrall over us is not so great a thing as that. So go, little Miri, and make yourself known."

Mrdja could feel the eyes on her as she walked. She had made it as far as the fringes of Camoa, slipping between the shadows of the wood, before she was caught. This was not true, not quite. Some had been stalking her from the start, those whose duty it was to patrol every inch of the land and to ensure its safety. And slowly, steadily, the scrutiny had grown. Mrdja made no attempt to acknowledge it, as she trod her lonely path. She pretended not to hear what they whispered under their breaths, murmurs piercing through the gradually softening Word of the Wood. With every step, the accusations grew stronger. After a while, new voices joined the chorus. Deeper, softer. Male, she realised, and wondered if her sire was among their number. The whispers of the Wood grew dimmer, and the murmurs of its stewards grew more distinct over the din. Some wondered if she sought out a man. Some proposed it was a duty on Ljda's behalf. Others bickered, some daring to whisper that, perhaps, she was not looking back, while others insisted that could never be the case. "After all," she caught Thrjs say, "she would never leave me behind." Mrdja bit hard on her lip and forced herself forward, so blinded by determination she did not even realise she had crossed the threshold. There was not the grand confrontation she had been been bracing for, however. It did not satisfy her sense of drama, but she did find herself relieved that nobody had... she framed it as, nobody had the spine to face her. Which was fortunate. She was not certain, if it came to it, she would have had the spine to leave. "It had to be done," she muttered to herself, as the last voices of the viera faded behind her. The whispers of the forest slipped away from her. She did not grasp at them, even as the last of them sloughed off, left her diminished, a duller, lesser creature than she had been. Even so, she did not look back. It was too late to make a difference. The world was quiet, now.

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite2022 #OC: ysabet sable

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revmeg · 2 months

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"White Egret" by Chris Abani

The whole earth is filled with the love of God. -Kwame Davis A stream in a forest and a boy fishing, heart aflame, head hush, tasting the world-- lick and pant. The Holy Scripture is animal not book. I should know, I have smoked the soul of God, psalm burning between fingers on an African afternoon. And how is that death can open up an alleluia from the core of a man? How easily the profound fritters away in words. And the simple wisdom of my brother: What you taste with abandon even God cannot take from you. All my life, men with blackened insides have fought to keep the flutter of a white egret in my chest from bursting into flight, into glory.

#poetry #lit #Chris Abani #Smoking the Bible

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livingwellnessblog · 6 months

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The Master Key System by Charles F. Haanel | Free Book

"Next in importance comes Time Efficiency because time is all that we have, and what we accomplish depends entirely upon what use we make of our time. If you work eight hours, sleep eight hours, and use eight hours for recreation, study and self-improvement and all the time is fully utilized, give yourself 100%. But if any part of the eight hours which should be sold at a profit is spent in idleness, or gossip, or any form of mental dissipation; if any part of this time is wasted, or worse than wasted by allowing your thought to rest on critical, discordant or inharmonious subjects of any kind, cut down your percentage accordingly. If you fall asleep the minute your head touches the pillow, all right, but if you spend from fifteen minutes to an hour trying to get to sleep, cut your percentage down again: if your sleep is disturbed by dreams or fear or worry of any kind, cut your percentage down again. If you jump up early and feel refreshed and vigorous, if you bathe and make your toilet without the loss of any unnecessary time, well and good, but if you idle or dream or fritter away from fifteen minutes to a half-hour needlessly, cut your percentage down again.

If you spend the rest of your time in good healthy recreation, which benefits you, both physically and mentally, well and good; you are acquiring capital which will have a cash value, but if you let the time get away from you with nothing to show for it, you are not better physically, mentally or morally; if the time has gone and left nothing of value, then it has been lost for it may leave something detrimental, something which will prove a handicap in your race for success. Here again you must be fair with yourself and give yourself exactly the percentage to which you are entitled."

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twittercomfrnklin2001-blog · 2 years

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Jakob's Wife

Barbara Crampton is so good as preacher Larry Fessenden’s downtrodden wife in the first third of Travis Stevens’ JAKOB’S WIFE (2021) it’s a pity the film starts falling apart later. Even then, the scenes that work are enough to pull you through to an ambiguous ending that seems more lazy than profound. Her Anne so rarely gets to express herself that when she states an opinion during a family dinner, the others at the table are shocked. Then she’s attacked by The Master (Bonnie Aarons) and starts turning into a vampire. Using vampirism as a metaphor for the awakening of female power is a solid idea, though the writers keep pounding the audience over the head with it rather than letting them discover it for themselves. The film also makes Anne’s transition too abrupt. Suddenly she has a whole new wardrobe and starts cussing out her husband. Still, there’s a kicky scene of her dancing to I Speak Machine’s “Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)” while rearranging the living room by simply picking up each piece of furniture as if it were nothing. There’s some funny slapstick when she kills a neighbor, and her husband tries to hide it from the sheriff even as the victim rises from the dead behind him. And the suggestion that pot can help curb her bloodlust for a while is a clever new wrinkle on the vampire mythos. But the tonal shifts between comedy, horror and feminist drama are too abrupt. It’s more like a bad mash-up than a genre hybrid. Even as the film starts frittering away into inconsistency, however, Crampton and Fessenden commit fully to whatever they’re given to play. There’s also a funny bit by wrestler CM Punk as an inept deputy.

#horror films #barbara crampton #vampires

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thiswaycomessomethingwicked · 4 years

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Theres suddenly a lot of napoleon hate in the tag and idk what to do.. I’m interested in him and all but he did a lot of rly bad shit. I don want to pester you but do you know a way i can like.. come to terms woth those thoughts because its unhealthy to just rip from a hyperfixation

ah yeah that comes and goes. I don’t track, or go into, the Napoleon tags for that reason.

I’ve addressed this before to another anon a year or so ago, maybe more, but at the end of the day you have to understand that Napoleon was human. He did bad things, he did good things. He could be a dick, he could be warm and generous. Because he is a multi-facsted human being living, and ruling, in a complex time. (All times are complex, but you know what I mean.) (Also, there are times when you can’t really apply modern expectations of behavior or morality to the past. Or, I mean, you can. But it won’t get you very far. I think tumblr struggles with this, sometimes.)

I don’t have an answer for how you should reconcile the contradictory life he lead. That is up to you to figure out. Sometimes you just have to sit with, and acknowledge, the bad. Because it isn’t going away.

But also don’t become all consumed on one side (he’s the anti-christ/evil/the worst thing ever) or the other (saint who can do no wrong). Finding a balanced, nuanced understanding of him is key.

And to that end, I recommend getting off Tumblr. Tumblr does not like nuance or context. It does not like understanding the world people are born into, the events that impacted their lives, the fact that they are human and so have deep flaws - as we all do.

What I do recommend? Reading lots. Avoid Alan Schom and Phillip Dwyer (my two nemesis, though they are unaware of this). I only point you to biographies as a means to provide you with an overview of his life. But all biographers are flawed, all have their biases. And biography as a historical format is ... well I’ve strong views on it. But if you’re keying in on one person for fixation reasons, it’s a good starting point. Zamoyski’s alright. I have some critiques of his work but he’s as fine as any for a starting point. Steven Englund’s Napoleon: A Political Life is probably the best I’ve read.

But once you’re done with that, read what original documents you can (memoirs, diaries, letters, accounts, newspapers), but read them critically. Know that memoirists all had a spin. Letters were written with an understanding that they could be read publicly - if at least to other family members. The concept of privacy was different at that time.

Also, very importantly, read broadly about the life and times of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Read about the French Revolution, Napoleon was 20 when it began and it had a profound impact on him. Read about culture and society at the time - in France, in Corsica, Italy, the UK. Read about religion, about science and literature of the late 18th and early 19th century. Napoleon was not a religious man but his Catholic childhood informed, if subconsciously, many of his world views. Especially his understand of a woman’s place in the world. It’s a deeply Mediterranean Catholic understanding. Read about friendship and the homo-social nature of Napoleonic relationships in France (Napoleonic Friendship is great for this). Read about the revival of the classics (which, when covering the French Revolution, should be addressed).

It’s one of those things, that to come to understand someone. To reconcile their incredible bad with their incredible good, you need to know the world they were operating in. The life they led. The information they had to hand. The relationships that informed and influenced them.

E.g.: Napoleon and Josephine fought famously over money. Why? Josephine had a compulsive spending habit that I think is a bit of a response to the Revolution and her experiences therein. Napoleon watched his father fritter away what little money the family had gambling, drinking, whoring, ill-thought out business ventures etc. (his mother, according to one apocryphal story, used to send him down to the docks to spy on his father and report back how much he lost). He also went through incredible poverty in his early 20s as the sole bread-winner for his entire family. Des Mazis has some moving memories about this time and how messed up Napoleon was about feeling like he was failing everyone.

These two people have strong responses to money because of the things they’ve lived through. Entirely understandable responses. But they are responses that are in conflict, so of course they fought over it.

Context matters.

Some of the things he did are not going to be comfortable to think about. And that’s ok. That’s part of studying history. Witnessing events and actions that are uncomfortable, that are horrible. But also, as a historian, your role is to understand. By all means look at the decisions he made and say: that was a terrible thing to do. But also look at decisions he made that were good. Like, I don’t know how else to put this than to say: he was complex, he made mistakes, he was cruel in some of his policies, he was also capable of great kindness and generosity and goodness of spirit. He did France great good and he did her great harm. As all rulers do to their countries.

He did the people he loved great harm and great good. He hurt them and helped them. As we all do to the people in our lives that we care about.

I wish you the best on this.

My only truly dear, and earnest advice is: get off Tumblr. Do not take your history from this website. Do your own research. Form your own opinions.

Thank you for the kind ask!

#napoleon #napoleon bonaparte #ask #repyl #anon #history

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tiger-moran · 3 years

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Based on this post

I agree that that canonical reference to the “most repellant man of [Holmes’s] acquaintance” who is “a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor” could easily be Moriarty. I don’t believe Moriarty is a ‘Robin Hood’ figure or motivated by just wanting to help people but I still say he’s not motivated by money either. I don’t mean money is meaningless to him and he wants to live without it but I think his liking for money extends only so far, to wanting to purchase nice things for himself (a decent house, well made clothing, nice food, a few small luxuries, and I think also when he becomes close to Moran he wants to buy nice things for Moran too); beyond that though, he has no burning desire to get more money. To him I think a love of money would seem very vulgar and very... commonplace, and acquiring more and more money is not his motivation. He’s motivated by wanting to keep himself amused, by wanting to prove he’s smarter than everyone else, by wanting to spite those in positions of power also who look down on him for various reasons. I don’t think he is the sort who would get very emotional about poor little starving orphan children or abused animals or something but he can still recognise injustice and he can still think many behaviours, particularly those that harm the weak and vulnerable, are abhorrent, and if he’s got more money than he needs or knows what to do with, why not give it away to help vulnerable people, or abused animals. Plus it would amuse him no end to steal from the rich just to give it to poor people or to protect mistreated dogs or something.

And Moran too; I think to portray Moran as being entirely mercenary and motivated only by money, as many have, is to show a profound misunderstanding of his character, one which is definitely not backed up by canon (this is the guy who is still loyal to Moriarty after his presumed death when he’s not being paid by him any longer, and appears to be rather lacking in funds and resorting to cheating at card games to make money, despite Moriarty previously having paid him a large amount. So where did all Moran’s money go? Do we assume he frittered or gambled it all away? Well you can do but we can also assume he gave it away, quite probably to those far more in need than him, because money was never his motivation either).

#James Moriarty #Sebastian Moran #Sherlock Holmes #Sherlock Holmes canon

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englishlam71-blog · 5 years

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harrowbleak · 6 years

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I feel like posting a WIP, so behold. I really like the fate/series, although it has many, many warts. Many, many warts. I’ve been especially interested in the whole Gilles de Rais and Jeanne d’Arc situation, because if I don’t consume garbage, I will almost certainly die. But really what I’m interested in is how the show decided to handle Gilles de Rais as being split between Saber Gilles, who is rational and believes in justice, and Caster Gilles who literally murders children. And so it’s especially interesting to make that virtuous past look directly into its hideous future and know that it’s not just a possibility, but what actually happens. And that he loves the shit out of Jeanne is also of interest, given what he becomes. Fate/Apocrypha kind of got into it, but they didn’t quite get elbows deep into it, and so I’m writing a fic. Anyway, here’s Wonderwall. [WIP tag] [Fic Portfolio] Gilles isn’t sure where he is. Asleep? No, something deeper than that. They’d hanged him in 1440. A beautiful morning in October. He’d been the first to die, although the rope had been just a little short. He remembers the horrible moment when the line went taut, and he began to strangle. Poor Poitou, poor Henriet. They’d have to watch him choke, and realize their necks would not be broken by the fall. In the end, they’d been too afraid to defy him. As much as he could have disdained their tacit compliance in all of his grotesque evil, he knows they were powerless; his victims, too, just as much as all those innocent children.

Was Prelati here? Was he watching? His dear, treacherous Prelati, who had found him in his grief and asked that eminently lethal question:

If Jeanne d’Arc was the holiest of maidens, why did the Lord let her burn?

Much later, that question would lead to others, and pondering them would distort Gilles utterly from what he had been as a man of 26. How much depravity was enough? Why did God, who loved them, allow such heinous evil to be committed against those most faithful? Why was no one punished? Dimly, he remembers. He’d hanged, after nearly a decade of killing, and burned, burned, burned, if only because the boundless greed of his detractors surpassed his desire to fritter his wealth away. Nothing mattered, after the war, and mattered even less after Jeanne, whose name would ring out in his heart forever.

Under threat of torture, Gilles had confessed the grisly account of a hundred, two hundred, six hundred dead children. He’d tormented his own victims just the same, after all, and so he knew how awful, how beautiful such agony could be, and his frail heart feared what an inquisitor would subject him to in order to extract those hideous stories. The little one he’d smothered with his hands after extracting every small scream she could make. The little one he’d dressed in a page’s fine clothes before he ran a knife over their sweet young throat. How he had laughed at the profound ineptitude of God, failing over and over to protect those he should have guarded most jealously. He was sure he could feel Jeanne burning, the heat of her pyre all around him. Her last breath was on the lips of every dying child. Why hadn’t he been there when they set her ablaze? Why can’t he remember that, but remembers kissing every cold brow of every cold child? O Gilles de Montmorency-Laval,

O bloodstained Baron de Rais, Wouldst see again that holy maid? Wouldst speak again her blesséd name? And whatever he is now, it answers. Every fragment of who he was, who he is in this abyss, who the world has imagined him to be now that he has left it, every shattered piece of him calls out in unison. Where must I go?

#jmonWIP #fate series #harm to children tw #death tw #long post

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vedantaboston · 3 years

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The Grandest of All Truths

"“Comfort” is no test of truth. On the contrary, truth is often far from being comfortable. If one intends to really find truth, one must not cling to comfort." -- Swami Vivekananda (CW 8. 14)

A group of college students went to Belur Math to meet Swami Vivekananda sometime in the 1890s. In the course of their conversation, Swamiji said to them:

“You are all studying different schools of European philosophy and metaphysics and learning new facts about nationalities and countries. Can you tell me what is the grandest of all the truths in life?” (CW 5. 329)

If Swamiji were to ask the same question to you and me, what would be our answer? How would we even begin to think of an answer?

Here is one way: Every truth is valuable. Every truth therefore can be thought of as “grand.” Perhaps all truths are not equally grand. Some are probably grander than others, and there is very likely one truth which is the grandest among them all.

But how can we compare one truth with another? One way to do it is by determining the proximity of a truth to the absolute Truth. Which truth would qualify as the “absolute Truth” (with a capitalized “T,” no less)? A truth that is independent of time (kāla), space (deśa) and causality (nimitta)—a truth that stands on its own, a truth that is completely independent—deserves to be the absolute Truth. Vedanta identifies it with what is real (satya), conscious (jñāna), and infinite (ananta) (Taittirīya Upaniṣad, 2.1.1). All other “truths” besides this are relative in nature.

Let us assume that the nearer a truth is to the absolute Truth, the grander it is. By this yardstick, the grandest of all truths would obviously be one which is the nearest to the absolute Truth; it would be the truth which is, so to say, a doorway to the absolute Truth. Which means, if we hold on to the grandest of all truths long enough, we shall eventually come face to face with the absolute Truth.

The absolute Truth itself cannot be the grandest of all truths for the simple reason that it is the absolute. It transcends all relative truths. It is incomparable. The grandest of all truths is a relative truth all right, but one which is almost on the borderline that separates the relative from the absolute.

Which truth, specifically, would qualify as the grandest of all the truths in life? There is a lot of subjectivity involved here, so we’ll most likely have different answers. What was Swami Vivekananda’s answer? It was simple and direct:

“We shall all die!”

That’s it? Every one of us is going to die one day—as if we didn’t know that already! The inevitability of death is a truth all right. But far from being “the grandest of all truths,” it is on the contrary the most unpleasant of all truths. It’s a truth we’d rather not think about.

Instead of thinking about life and living it to the full, why should we fritter away our time and energy brooding over the gloomy, dark thought of death? Death is going to come anyway, whether we think about it or not. Why should we idolize this hideous truth and call it “the grandest of all truths”? Swamiji’s answer, therefore, seems at first sight to be either plainly absurd or meant as a joke.

In reality it is neither. When a Vivekananda speaks, thoughtful men and women do not dismiss his statements so easily. To hear the words of a prophet we need something more than merely a pair of good ears. To read a prophet’s words in print we need something more than merely a pair of good eyes. That something more is humility, reverence, and a sensitive, truth-seeking heart. When the words of a prophet reverberate in the heart of such a person, their inner meaning is revealed. Let us open our hearts to Swamiji’s luminous words:

“Look here—we shall all die! Bear this in mind always, and then the spirit within will wake up. Then only meanness will vanish from you, practicality in work will come, you will get new vigor in body and mind, and those who come in contact with you will also feel that they have really got something uplifting from you.” (CW 5. 329)

The prime condition Swamiji puts is that “the grandest of all truths”—the truth of our eventual death—must be kept in mind always. A small part of the mind must always remain soaked in the thought of death. What shall we gain from this ceaseless contemplation on death? Awakening of the spirit, disappearance of all meanness, practicality in work, a new vigor in body and mind, and the power to uplift others.

But all of these will come only if we face the thought of death courageously. This is important. Even cowards brood over the thought of death. But they don’t choose to do it, they are forced to do it. Their inner weakness and fear compel them to agonize endlessly about death. Swamiji could tolerate and forgive everything but cowardice. When a disciple timidly suggested that serving others in this evanescent world was of no use because death is always stalking behind every one of us, Swamiji flared up.

“Fie upon you! If you die, you will die but once. Why will you die every minute of your life by constantly harping on death like a coward?” (CW 7. 176)

Swamiji wanted the contemplation on death to be a healthy exercise of the brave, not a death-phobia of the weak.

It is true, however, that even in the case of the brave and the earnest, the immediate effect of meditation on death would certainly be drooping of the spirit. The benefits would surface only later. Swamiji agrees:

“Quite so. At first, the heart will break down, and despondency and gloomy thoughts will occupy your mind. But persist, let days pass like that—and then? Then you will see that new strength has come into the heart, that the constant thought of death is giving you a new life, and is making you more and more thoughtful by bringing every moment before your mind’s eye the truth of the saying, ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’ Wait! Let days, months and years pass, and you will feel that the spirit within is waking up with the strength of a lion, that the little power within has transformed itself into a mighty power! Think of death always and realize the truth of every word I say.” (CW 5. 329–30)

As always, Swamiji was only echoing the instruction of his guru, Sri Ramakrishna, who taught: “The world is impermanent. One should constantly remember death” (Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, 589). On another occasion Sri Ramakrishna said: “Do your duty in the world but remember that the ‘pestle of death’ will sometime smash your hand. Be alert about it” (Gospel, 428).

The importance of keeping the thought of death always before our mind’s eye has been emphasized in many religious traditions. Ansari (d. 1088), a Persian Sufi master and poet, said, “O man, remember death at all times.” In Ecclestasticus (7. 40) we find this instruction: “In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin.” Daidōji Yūzan (17th cent), a samurai and author, wrote: “The idea most vital and essential to the samurai is that of death, which he ought to have before his mind day and night, night and day, from the dawn of the first day of the year till the last minute of the last day of it.” Takeda Shingen (1521–73), a great Japanese general and student of Zen, remarked: “Zen has no secrets other than seriously thinking about birth and death.” The Imitation of Christ expresses the idea this way: “Thou oughtest so to order thyself in all thy thoughts and actions, as if today thou wert to die.”

It is important to remember that not only must there be the effort to keep in mind the thought of our eventual death, but we must persist with this practice even through the dark, depressing days of despondency. The important thing is to remain resolutely positive. We don’t have to be obsessed with death. Nor do we want to live with a constant death-related anxiety which makes us avoid the topic. Wherever perseverance, grit and a strong will to succeed are present, light has got to come sooner or later. That is what happens in the case of meditation on death too.

If Nachiketa could remain doggedly determined in his quest to know the secret of death, brushing aside all of Yama’s alternative, tempting offers (Kaṭhopaniṣad, 1.1.23–27), it was because Nachiketa had for long contemplated on his own death. At the end of Yama’s teaching, Nachiketa was an altogether transformed person. The form of a child remained, but his awareness had smashed all barriers and become one with the universal consciousness.

The thought of death was the turning point in Siddhartha’s life too. On his first ever chariot drive outside the palace, the young prince encountered disease, old age, and death. He might as well have driven on, dismissing those things as inevitable, so why bother? That is what most of us do. If Siddhartha too had done that, he wouldn’t have become the Buddha (563–480 BCE) and we wouldn’t be remembering him today twenty-five centuries after he passed on. But the thought of human suffering, culminating in that climactic, mysterious event called death, never left Siddhartha’s mind after what he saw outside the palace. When he solved the mystery years later under the bodhi tree, Siddhartha was a transformed figure. Gone was the prince of Kapilavastu and in his place stood the Enlightened One, the prince of renunciation and compassion.

The passing away of his father, Shivaguru, brought about a profound change in the mind of young Shankara (788–820 CE). Encountering the reality of death so early in life, the young boy began to view the world in an entirely new light. Life was never the same for him again. He never looked back until he had solved the mystery of death. Indeed, a Sanskrit movie on Shankara’s life showed him always flanked by two companions, Knowledge and Death: Shankara had acquired the first and conquered the second. Visible only to Shankara, these two followed him everywhere. Towards the end of the movie, we see Death bidding farewell to Shankara—and the great monk intuitively realizing that the time had come for him to lay down the body and enter the infinite, indescribable realm of immortality.

A similar thing happened in the life of a boy named Ramakrishna (1836–86), who lived in Kamarpukur, an out-of-the-way village in Bengal. He was only seven when his father Kshudiram died. The whole family was plunged into sorrow. But the death of Kshudiram affected Ramakrishna more fundamentally than it did others. To all appearances, there was little change in the merry, lively child. But inwardly a tremendous transformation had taken place. Not many knew that the young boy had begun to quietly slip away and wander alone in the Bhutir Khāl cremation ground or in other solitary spots in the village. This inner change, sparked off by the event of his father’s death, reached its logical culmination at Dakshineswar when Ramakrishna experienced the Truth that transcends death.

These are only a few examples to show how the persistent thought of death, instead of demoralizing and weakening a person, can bring about a qualitative improvement in life. It not only uplifts and strengthens people but also wafts them into the arms of the Immortal Being where death has no access.

The usual question arises: The examples given are all of extraordinary people, all geniuses. How can what applies to them apply to us ordinary people? Vivekananda answers:

“The science of yoga tells us that we are all geniuses if we try hard to be. Some will come into this life better fitted and will do it quicker perhaps. We can all do the same. The same power is in everyone.” (CW 4. 219)

There is no species called “ordinary people.” Every one of us is extraordinary. No exception there. Each soul is not only potentially divine (CW 1. 257) but also equally divine. The degree of manifestation of divinity may vary, but the quality of divinity does not. The same power, said Swamiji, is in everyone. It’s up to us to decide with what intensity and towards which goal that power is to be directed. If it is directed towards “the grandest of all truths”—towards the thought of death—a wonderful thing happens. Certain subtle changes take place within and our personality undergoes a radical transformation.

How would this change my life? I will be a different person in several significant ways—and the change will become obvious when I compare what I once was with what I have the power to be.

Attachment (rāga)

I was perhaps strongly attached to the world—to my family, my possessions, my career and social status, to my likes, hobbies and ideas. The intensity of my attachments may have resulted from the unacknowledged conviction that the world was all that mattered. I had neither the time nor the inclination to think of anything beyond. “Who knows what’s beyond, and who’s beyond anyway?” I may have said in the past.

Or perhaps: “Let me make the most of what’s right before my eyes. Let me now eat, drink and have fun. There’ll be plenty of time to think about death when I grow old.” Or putting on the cloak of a pragmatist I may have said: “Wisdom lies in making hay while the sun shines. Here’s life and let me enjoy it while it lasts. As to death, there’s probably nothing beyond, just zilch.” I may have even thought that I was a devotee and given my attachments a religious color.

But reflecting deeply on the reality of death can change me. I may continue to have a semblance of attachment to the world, but it won’t be strong. My meditation on death will reveal to me that nothing lasts. Everything perishes sooner or later. Even my own body will one day either provide food to the worms underground or become a pile of ashes and merge into the soil. No sensible person gets attached to shadows. I will begin to see a shadowy world and keep myself free and unattached.

Desire (vāsanā)

Attachment breeds desire. My past attachments filled me with unending desires, big and small, gross and subtle, noble and ignoble. A mind full of desires is like a sheet of water full of ripples, eddies and whirlpools. Now I know why I was always restless and anxious. I had no peace. No sooner was one desire fulfilled than another popped up. It was an endless chain and I found myself bound hand and foot.

After beginning my earnest reflection on the reality of death, I will be freed from my worldly desires, because my mind’s constant dwelling on death will convince me that pursuit of desires is really the pursuit of death. It’s a way of hastening the process of death. For, the needless struggle to fulfill one’s desires destroys the body and weakens the mind. I will learn to say no to all desires except one—the desire to know the mystery of death and to explore the realm that transcends death, or in popular terms, the desire to know God. This is a higher desire, which subsumes and overcomes all other desires. This is a special kind of desire because, unlike other desires, this will take me on the road to freedom, not to bondage.

Anger (krodha) and Fear (bhaya)

Anger and fear arise in every desire-filled mind. Whenever obstacles came, I used to get angry. The anger did not manifest externally when I was strong enough to overcome the obstacle. If the obstacle was too formidable, I seethed. Whether I felt strong or weak, I could not avoid being filled with anxiety about the unknown hurdles that lay ahead and with fear that somehow or other the object of my desire and attachment might never be mine or that it might desert me or be snatched away. My past feels like a wretched existence.

But now I can be free from both anger and fear. Having the truth of my own death firmly impressed on my mind, I will find it pointless and foolish to be angry with anybody for any reason. We don’t generally get to see a man on his deathbed blowing his top. That’s the time to forgive and forget. And that is what I’ll do. I don’t have to be on my deathbed to do that. The mistakes that the dying man seeks to rectify during the final moments can now be rectified by me even when I am in the best of health. Not only will I not get angry, I won’t also fear anything. Having encountered the truth about death day after day, month after month, I’ll be free from fear.

Delusion (moha)

A life without a worthy ideal is a life of delusion. The only ideal that I had in the past was to satisfy the desire that was uppermost in my mind at any given time. This pursuit was not only worthless but also unattainable. It defied all logic. One would think that satisfying a desire would get rid of that desire, but it doesn’t, it only strengthens the desire by producing another desire to repeat the experience. Now I know why I led an unfulfilled life.

But after I begin reflecting on death, my life can attain a measure of stability, because my ideal now is to know the truth that transcends death. The uncertainties, the incongruencies, and the hollow values of material life can no longer throw me off my balance. The persistent thought of death will invariably produce in my mind the thought of what transcends death. It is this constant plumbing of the depths of my mind by the thought of the transcendent that will lift me from the morass of delusion. It will gradually transform me into a new person.

I will see that the old-me was bogged down by attachment, desire, anger, fear, and delusion. But the new-me, who has begun to reflect on death, will be free from them. This freedom leads to, as Vivekananda said, awakening of the inner spirit, disappearance of meanness, practicality in work, new vigor in body and mind, and power to uplift others.

These are great assets, no doubt, but they are not the goal. The goal is to know the mystery of death. With these newly acquired characteristics, which transform the old-me into a new-me, I will continue my quest for that which lies beyond death. Not for nothing did Swamiji call sannyasa “love of death” (CW 3. 446). Every genuine spiritual seeker is a monastic at heart. Not everyone can or need to take formal monastic vows. While the monastic renounces both externally and internally, the lay seeker practices renunciation only internally. That is all the difference there is between a monastic spiritual seeker and a lay spiritual seeker. What is required of both is to be a true seeker of God. And that is easy enough to verify. Every true seeker loves death.

Swamiji explains:

“Worldly people love life. The sannyasin is to love death. Are we to commit suicide then? Far from it. For suicides are not lovers of death, as it is often seen that when a man trying to commit suicide fails, he never attempts it for a second time. What is the love of death then? We must die, that is certain, let us die then for a good cause.” (CW 3. 446)

Swamiji then goes on to show how the little individuality of ours, which is centered round the body and mind, must be replaced with a universal individuality that is capable of embracing everyone and everything.

The constant thought of death gives us that tremendous impetus to break away from the hold our narrow self has over us. It widens our vision and this finds expression as selfless, unalienated love towards all. The spirit of service thus naturally fills the heart of an awakened soul. The body-centered and mind-centered personality begins to fade away and is replaced by a God-centered personality.

When this process is complete, an amazing change takes place. The thought “I will die one day” throws aside the veil and brings me face-to-face with the truth which proclaims that “I will never die.” The grandest of all truths, which reminded me every moment of my death, now takes me by the hand and leads me through the doorway to the absolute truth of my immortal nature.

Earlier I felt that “I will die one day” because my “I” was mixed up with my body and mind. Now I realize that “I will die one day” really means “I will be separated one day from my body.” The death that terrified me in the past is discovered to be nothing but the separation of the body from me and my mind. It is really the death of the body, not my death, because I and my mind continue to live.

Moreover, I don’t have to remain bodiless for ever. Soon enough I can get another body. In the words of the Gītā (2.22), it is just like changing the old dress for a new one. The body-dress changes in every life. Since every one of us has had millions of past lives, we have changed our dresses millions of times. It appears quite silly now to make a big deal about a simple matter like changing a dress. When we think about it calmly, death loses its sting.

What worries the new-me is not the death of the body but the survival of the mind. The new-me will recognize that the real problem-generator is not the body but the mind. So long as the mind lives, it is going to latch on to some body or other. It cannot live on its own for long, because all its desires need a body for expression and satisfaction. So I will long for the death of the mind itself. I will be fed up with my mind-dress and the numberless body-dresses I have worn and discarded. I won’t want a dress anymore.

In the Bible, the fall from grace is symbolized by the desire to cover the body. Adam and Eve were born pure and naked. The first stain of impurity produced in them the desire to cover themselves. The new-me will have changed the direction of my journey. I will be then swimming upstream towards God, having purified myself of all worldly desires. So clothes—the body-dress and the mind-dress—will become superfluous. The new-me will want to wander freely in God’s Garden, pure and naked, like Adam and Eve before the fall. My expanding consciousness will no longer be able to remain confined within the body-dress and the mind-dress.

I won’t however go out of my way to seek the falling of the body-dress. I will know that the body is going to fall sooner or later anyway once it’s karma-texture withers away. What I will strive to throw away with all my might is the mind-dress. The power to fling it away—or, more accurately, to burn it away—comes through the grace of God, which is ceaselessly blowing like a breeze. I have only to unfurl the sails of the yacht of my life. Meditating on “the grandest of all truths” is the first step in the process of unfurling of the sails to catch the breeze of divine grace.

The burning-away of the mind-dress is another kind of death. It separates me not only from my body but also from my mind. This happens only once, and when it does, I will be free for ever. No more deaths for me, because there will be no more births for me. I then will have no body and no mind—and so no limitations and bondages of any kind. No more will anyone refer to me as he or she or they. Gender belongs to the body, not to the ātman. I will then be the unfettered ātman—free, perfect, and immersed eternally in supreme bliss.

It is easy to understand now why Swamiji called the certainty of death as the grandest of all truths—for, a brave and positive reflection on it can take me swiftly, as no other truth can, to the absolute truth of my immortal, divine, and blissful nature.

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cineresis · 7 years

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TumblrFrostbite's AU Questions: If the Joker had existed in the Earth-3 Universe (who had a different origin in how he became what he is) instead of the Jokester, would the Clown Prince of Crime be a bigger threat than Owlman in that 'verse's Gotham? Also, what happens if Jokester and Batman had coexisted together on Earth-0/New Earth?

(This gets very in-depth and incorporates various continuities. Jokester characterisation is inevitably influenced by incomparable AO3 author Kieron_oDuibhir; Jason characterisation is primarily extrapolated from Under the Red Hood. Warning for Owlman’s ableism, Heath Ledger’s Joker, Batman’s emotionally-stunted parenting, and lots and lots of nihilism.)

So we have, at base, two options: either Owlman creates the Joker, or he doesn’t.

Say he creates the Joker – in whatever way, intentional or not. What we have now is a man freed of the fetters of morality and sensibility, and who has the king of Gotham’s night to thank for it. It was Owlman who showed him that life is nothing more than irony and slapstick, that the universe is meaningless and chaotic and cruel and will kill you just because it can, so what can the Joker do but show his appreciation to the fullest extent of his ability? How better to honour that act than to demonstrate how well he’s learned everything Owlman taught him?

Of course he aspires to grandiosity, because along with all the other limits he’s discarded is the idea that he should be careful about how much space he takes up in the world, that he should restrain himself from unduly rocking the boat, that he should ever bother to do anything less than he is capable of. But in no known universe has the Joker ever been as great a threat as Owlman even in a mundane sense. In no known universe has he ever held as effective a stranglehold even over Gotham’s institutions and criminal element alike, much less over the world’s. Oh, he has ambition, certainly, and he has the drive and ruthlessness to fulfil it. But his primary threat is the threat of a terrorist, the threat of unpredictable wide-scale violence to sow panic and mayhem – he’s a bomb or a bullet shot into a crowd, not a knife or a rifle or a guided missile. He lacks focus.

(Not that Owlman is a threat to Gotham. You don’t piss where you eat, and in any case it’s never been terror that he craves – it’s control, and under that a desperate, howling need to matter, to make a difference and exert his influence on the fabric of reality, because safety is a fairy tale and he’s seen what the world does to the helpless and the insignificant. Fear is simply a means to an end, though a satisfying one. Within five years of routing and restructuring Gotham’s Court of Owls to his own ends, the city’s bureaucracy and law enforcement run like a well-oiled machine, even if the machine in question is Moloch.)

That lack of focus is the second reason Owlman dislikes the Joker. Owlman hates, as constantly and naturally as breathing. He despises the overwhelming majority of humanity for their self-deceptive lip service to cultural mores and the expectations of their peers, for the petty ways they sabotage themselves to stay within delineated bounds, for their uninspired ambitions, for the way they fearfully turn their gazes from the dark and put their hopes in false idols of law, love, religion, or a social contract that has any compelling interest in their well-being. None of these things, Owlman knows, will save them, and they will die unremarkable and unremembered deaths without ever having done anything worthy of note. The Joker recognises this, at least. He recognises that there is no human force greater than the will to power – aspiration and achievement, intent and the pursuit of it – but he lacks the necessary willpower to make his intent a reality, and Owlman hates incompetence almost as much as idiocy. The Joker is capable of incredible focus when he wants to be, but inevitably his obsessions lead him astray of his primary goal, to his detriment.And that’s the first reason Owlman dislikes him: that the Joker recognises his place in the universe, but he doesn’t take it seriously. Owlman’s not opposed to fun. He wouldn’t do what he does if he didn’t enjoy it. He’d still do everything he could to gain so much power he’d never again feel fear, but he doesn’t actually need to go out night after night to extort people and organisations and punish those who didn’t play by the rules. If he wanted to, he could easily fritter the rest of his life away on shameless hedonism, but what he wants is to be the next best thing to God and spite Death while he’s at it, and the fact that he wants it is what makes it important. But the Joker doesn’t even care about what he wants enough to focus on carrying it through to the end. The Joker is so invested in deceiving himself about his true goals that he’s barely better than the sheep Owlman exploits. He dresses like a clown, but it’s not the makeup and the gags that Owlman hates (aside from the humiliation factor, which he’d gut Joker for the second he dared to aim it in Owlman’s direction). It’s the farce.

Here’s another fact about Owlman: he creates his own enemies. He was wrought from the darkest depths of adversity, and he came out the other side as the obsessive power-hungry authoritarian that he is today. He can’t help but be curious: what could he do to someone, what confluence of circumstances must there be, in order to break them free of their complacency? What is it that turns someone from sheep to wolf? (And let it not be said that Owlman misunderstands the biological reality of that metaphor: he knows the importance of community when it’s founded on a functional social structure. A man must sleep, and it would be well to have competent allies invested in him waking up again.) What would it take to create a proper ideological opponent – one who can bring a more convincing case against him than the only arguments anyone ever seems to have against those who deviate from expected conduct, which always boil down to either “you’re insane” or “you’re an asshole”? (There is a reason he cuts Batman off so disdainfully on Earth Prime.) Owlman leaves people alive if he thinks they can learn from it. He mutilates them and lets them go, like catch-and-release irritants; or else he kills the idiots and lets their families live, to see whether they fall into line, seek vengeance, or simply fail to justify their continued existence too. So it surprises only those who don’t know either man when the Joker realises that peacocking and pulling on Owlman’s pigtails for attention isn’t having the effect he wants, and he goes to war in earnest.There are lots of ways this can go, and all of them are disastrous for Gotham, but sooner or later it comes down to only one possible outcome. Owlman is not Batman. In the prime universe, the Joker isn’t wrong when he says that it’s Batman’s reluctance to kill that is responsible for every additional crime he commits, because he will never stop so long as both of them are still alive. In this world, once the Joker is no longer useful or amusing enough to continue earning his stay of execution, the game will always end with two armour-piercing rounds to the chest to put him down and one in the head to finish him off. Owlman has better things to do than indulge someone who isn’t worth his time or effort.(Years later, when he looks at Luthor’s calculations and realises what he’s seeing, it is the most power Owlman has ever held: the power to travel to any timeline that branched off from the original Earth, and to affect each one limitlessly without concern for the consequences, because every action he takes is negated in the instant of taking it. It is the most powerless he has ever felt.)

But let’s say that Owlman doesn’t create the Joker. This is Heath Ledger’s Joker instead, who comes out of nowhere and whose terror is as much that of the unknown and inexplicable as that of violence. He does what he does because he is a nihilist down to every cell in his body, in the jargonistic Nietzschean sense of a person oriented toward avolition and the destruction of values rather than toward life and striving, and what he really wants is to force the world to see the same truth he does as he dances in the light of its conflagration. Look on these Works, ye Hopeful, and despair!(And that’s different and the same as Owlman, once Crisis on Two Earths comes to pass. Owlman is an existentialist and a perfect Nietzschean protagonist, not a devotee of entropy. It’s a strangely ubiquitous error. Owlman never does anything without a reason, and he doesn’t decide to destroy all existence just because nothing matters – he does it because control is his only defense against the terror of mortality, the dark night of the soul, and destroying Earth Prime is the only available course of action left whose outcome he alone can determine. It’s the only available course of action that matters. Nietzsche himself saw nihilism as an inevitable result of value systems outliving their ability to fulfill fundamental human needs, and therefore as both a necessary process and one necessary to overcome. When the moment of epiphany dawns and you realise that all you care about is empty of worth or meaning, you return to the core truth that there is no point to being alive except subjective self-definition and the will to power, and you define which new values give you sufficient reason to continue living. It’s not just vitriol that drives Owlman to strip humanity of its comforting illusions – it’s his instinctive dehumanisation of every person who wastes their life so damned intractably on a rickety edifice of social constructs and specious excuses that they may as well be dead, and the profound loneliness that comes of being one of the few people on Earth worth existing. Both Owlman and the Joker are forces of darkness seeking to corrupt the light until it is as dark as they, but at least Owlman has other projects at the same time.)

And let’s say that the Jester does exist in this world, because this Joker arises as a reactionary force and it’s much more interesting than using any other endlessly-recurring enemy when the first time the Joker shows his face is to waltz onto Owlman’s turf and say, I can help take care of that little problem of yours.Owlman looks at this warped parody of the clown with his Glasgow smile and his smeared, ugly warpaint, this funhouse mirror image shattered and reassembled by someone without the capacity for care, twitchy and restless and prowling the room with a bottomless hyena hunger, and he says, Prove it.The Joker licks his lips, a darting tic of a movement stretched out into something obscene, and he leans forward and says, See, he says, see, it seems to me that what you have is this thorn in your side that you just can’t get rid of, right? You try and you try and go around and around in circles, and this game of cat and mouse that you’ve got here, it just. Never. Ends! No matter what you do. And I think, what I think is, is that it’s because you don’t think about it the right way. Everything in that big beautiful brain of yours is like…exquisite Swiss clockwork, all ticking along with this perfect mechanical precision, a place for everything and everything in its place, et cetera. And your little problem is like a grain of sand in the gears and when you try to solve that problem, well, it all just goes to pieces. But me? He holds his hands out, open and empty, no weapons, ladies and gentlemen, nothing up his sleeves. I know how nutcases like that think.Because you’re one of them? Owlman asks, voice heavy with irony.No, the Joker says quietly, all mockery suddenly gone and leaving behind a sucking, deadly emptiness. No. I’m not. But, he adds, nearly as an afterthought, they’d sure like me to be.

Owlman understands how rationality that tends to skew wide of common convention can seem like madness to the uncreative. He’s also met his share of psychotics insistent on their sanity, so he isn’t laying any bets yet as to which category this joker falls into. He asks, So what do you get out of this?The Joker says, A partnership. He says, What you’re doing with this town, really, it’s inspiring. You’ve got the law running scared, and everyone else is so busy trying to stay afloat and keep from drawing attention from the monsters under the bed that they’d sell their families up the river the very moment you dropped a hint! I admire that, Owlsie.A crescent-shaped blade clips a layer of skin from the clown’s ear and buries itself an inch deep in the wall behind him.The Joker hacks out a skittery laugh, ha–! Touches the cut and dismisses the blood on his fingertips with a glance and an ugly, asymmetric grin. Message received. But let me get to, heh, to the point: I think we could do great things together, you and I. You with the vision, and me with the…technique. All I need is a go-ahead and your promise. You look like a man who keeps his word. And if you aren’t interested…well! I can promise you’ll never see me again.(This is, of course, a threat.)Owlman gives him a long look. And why should I offer you this opportunity?

I’ve heard about you, the clown replies, licking his lips in the space between sentences, feral with barely-suppressed anticipation. Everyone in this town knows to either bring you the Jester alive or not lay a hand on him. And some people might think that’s impractical, or territorial, or maybe just a teensy bit romantic—There is nothing in the multiverse that can shut this Joker up short of sheer existential shock, yet the sudden glint of metal in Owlman’s hand and the look of get to the point or lose your fucking tongue he levels at him through his expressionless owl mask briefly manages. (Owlman has no time for homophobia or other pointless bigotry simply because that’s a stupid way to run a business, but nor does he have patience for people without the sense necessary to keep their blood inside their bodies, and the Joker is gunning for a Darwin Award at 130mph in a stolen ice cream truck.) Another too-quick grin darts across the Joker’s face, insolent and nervy. But the important thing is, they’re all wrong. I know how that brain of yours works, and it’s not just about calling dibs. It’s about sending a message. And if you give me the honor of taking out your trash, I can guarantee you that no one in Gotham will ever feel safe around a face like this – a flutter-fingered gesture encompasses the clown makeup – again.So Owlman grants the Joker the courtesy of an audition: destroy the Jester both literally and symbolically, don’t get himself killed in the process, and Owlman will make good on their deal.

A cumulative hour in his presence, and he loathes this Joker more than he ever could the other one. It’s not just that he doesn’t take his goals seriously. Whatever his true aims are, this Joker is meticulous in his preparations, putting them together with the care and attention to detail of a chessmaster or, more precisely, a bombmaker. It’s that the man himself is a bad joke. Everything he says and does – the tics exaggerated to the point of lasciviousness, the mincing mannerisms interspersed with sexual implications and aggressive vulgarity, the intrusions on others’ personal space, the utter disregard for any concept of the truth in his self-contradictory anecdotes – every part of the persona is faked solely to disconcert and disgust, a cheap plastic veneer with nothing behind it except for the occasional momentary flash of sincerity, discordantly subdued in comparison. This Joker pokes adders’ nests and goads murderers without even gaining any particular satisfaction from it. The only real passion he ever shows is for destruction and, at one point, when a periodic check-in culminates in Owlman pinning him to the wall by his throat and calmly threatening to remove an eye if he takes another step out of line, as the Joker wheezes laughter and invites Owlman to observe the suicide-vest pull-ring suddenly looped taut around his thumb.

Why so serious? the clown reprises breathlessly, feet scrabbling against the wall for purchase, and Owlman is sorely tempted to remove both his thumb and the eye. Since he’s at the wrong angle to do that before the Joker blows them both up, he instead squeezes the carotid pressure points at the sides of the clown’s neck – not pressing on his windpipe enough to alarm him; let him think that Owlman simply has trouble controlling his temper – until a few seconds later his eyes roll back in his head and his body goes slack, hands dropping limply back to his sides. Owlman lets him fall and puts a steel-armoured boot into his ribs as a reminder to keep on-task. (Broken ribs: continuously painful, mildly disabling but not enough to interfere with his work, exploitable for more severe injury, and most importantly less likely to incite betrayal than as-yet unearned mutilation. Owlman doesn’t actually begrudge sensible precautions for self-defense, so long as they remain only a threat.) The vest is confiscated and disposed of, as well as any other weapons Owlman finds on him in a thorough pat-down the clown wisely refrains from commenting on beyond pained laughter and sharp protests of excessive roughness.

From this encounter Owlman concludes, firstly, that the Joker is profoundly sadomasochistic and only slightly less suicidal; secondly, that if he screws up this mission in a way that redounds negatively upon the Court of Owls, Owlman will make him beg for death before granting it; and thirdly, whether or not said mission succeeds, Owlman is going to fucking murder him. The man’s very existence is offensive almost beyond Owlman’s capacity to express without spitting.

When the mission goes down a few days later, it predictably goes off the rails, because that’s how this story goes: the Joker never gets to kill the hero. Inevitably, there are casualties – perhaps civilian, perhaps another member or several of the Jester’s circus of rogues, but either way the primary objective goes uncompleted and the Jester lives to grieve the losses and fight another day. Gotham will not easily forget the scars of this confrontation. The Joker, no doubt sensing the retribution headed his way, disappears with the materiel and manpower Owlman lent him. (Not much, nothing too closely associated with him, and nothing he couldn’t replace, though Owlman intends to find out exactly how the man managed to make anyone in his Court turn coat.)

Owlman hunts him down. It’s unexpectedly difficult to find an unkempt madman with livid facial scars, but the Joker doesn’t have half the Jester’s practice at guerrilla tactics and soon enough Owlman tracks him down to his current hideout. He materialises soundlessly from the shadows and slams the Joker’s head into the nearest hard surface, and then the next moment the Joker is bent double clutching at the bloody hole in his stomach – from gun or knife or diamond-tipped talons, it makes no difference, because all that matters is that Owlman isn’t going to let this Joker bleed out before he gets the chance to explain exactly why he deserves it.

The clown is surprisingly dangerous even with a couple of broken ribs and a soon-to-be-fatal gut wound, not to mention whatever other injuries he picked up from his failed character assassination, and he manages to get a knife in through one of the gaps in Owlman’s armour before Owlman breaks his wrist and kicks him to the ground. The brief, guttural cry as Owlman stomps his other hand into the floor for good measure is reasonably gratifying. Joker curls up around his injuries, giggling wetly and unceasingly except when he has to gasp for breath or make noises of pain, and Owlman has to uncurl him like a hedgehog and push him down onto his back so he can lean a knee into his stomach and force the clown to look at him, talons digging parallel red lines into the scars on his cheeks. He keeps giggling as Owlman talks, cackles uncontrollably when Owlman slaps him to make him pay attention, and only stops so he can wheeze, Hey – hey. Wanna hear a joke?Is it you? Owlman asks with vindictive disinterest.

Close, giggles the clown. Sustained pressure on the diaphragm is a reliable way to suffocate someone, and with the combination of pain and blood loss and Owlman’s weight on him the Joker is already having trouble focusing on Owlman’s face, eyelids fluttering deliriously. It’s more about the fact that this place is littered with explosives – as are quite a few of your offsite operations – and you have just made it impossible for me to type the cancellation code. He waggles his crushed hand, grin stretching horrifically serene across his face like a gaping wound, teeth stained red with blood. I set it for three minutes when you showed up – how much time is there left, d'you think?Owlman glances at the clock display in the corner of his HUD and knows immediately that it’s not enough to subdue the Joker and drag him out of the building, much less find the detonator on him and disarm it. He gets up off of his victim and runs. Wild, unhinged laughter follows him out as the first explosions make the air behind him shudder with a wave of searing heat, drowning out all other sound.Afterward, he does not find a body amidst the charred wreckage. It should have been impossible for the Joker to make it out of the building alive, but the fact remains: there is no body to be found, and nor will Owlman or any member of his Court ever find one.

But now for happier things: where does the Jester come from, in the positive-polarity universe? Was he a victim of one of Gotham’s mob families rather than Owlman, mutilated and left to shoulder the burden of a loved one’s murder because he made the wrong jokes, stepped on the wrong toes, didn’t heed the warning signs when he went too far? Was he a rehabilitation case spurred into turning his life around after an encounter with Batman, a hapless Red Hood who was only ever in it for a lack of other options, who fell from a catwalk due to a sheer confluence of bad luck and whose face as he fell never stops haunting Batman’s waking ruminations? Was he a random bystander who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did he simply appear one day with no name and no past and decide, just as in any other circumstance, that there was nothing for it but to fight darkness with light and cruelty with kindness and revel in the fact that life, that the very nature of being alive, brings with it the opportunity for growth and self-determination and connection with those around you?

(He alludes to his past on occasion, in vague and casual terms, and with little external evidence of any emotion other than the carefree self-deprecation of the Fool. Batman knows more about him than anyone except, perhaps, his family, and knows equally that it doesn’t make much of a difference – to the Jester, yesterday matters because it establishes the conditions for today, and today is what you make of it. Whenever someone asks about his origin – they’re usually bright enough not to mention his disfigurement, though it’s implied in the question – he pirouettes to face them with a bright, inhumanly wide grin: Why, I make it my life’s work to bring low the powerful and raise up the weak, to spread laughter and joy, and to never set foot in court without everyone knowing I don’t belong there! Whatever else would I have done with myself?)The Jester gets along best with Robin, for they are kindred spirits, the brightness and animation to Batman’s swift and silent shadow. And they both get along well with kids, sapping the monster of its aura of menace with fast-flying quips and dazzling acrobatics, reassuring them that they’re safe and turning black-caped vengeance into an unambiguous protector, a tamed beast that punishes the vicious and protects the innocent. J wishes he could calm tears with sweets and big bear hugs but it’s bad policy to train kids to accept candy from strangers, so he sticks to sleight-of-hand magic tricks and lets his audience keep whatever small items he conjures as talismans against the dark.

Dick likes him best of all the Robins, because he grew up in the circus and even if the Jester lacks the training of a professional clown, the attitude is there, the groan-worthy love of a sly dig or a terrible pun and the backbreaking, humiliating dedication to drawing out a smile. You have to really like people to make it as a clown. He has a performer’s love of the spotlight, too, and an easy personal magnetism that eats up attention like a particularly friendly gravity well. In a way that Batman never does, the Jester feels like home.(Did he come onto the scene before or after Robin started joining Batman on his nightly patrols? Again, it doesn’t make much of a difference – the two men work together when their paths happen to cross, but they both have their own beats and their own cases a lot of the time. Where Batman focuses on street crime and corruption, the Jester is more involved in community service and social support networks and mainly tends to kick bad-guy butt when he knows it’s affecting those with little to lose. Batman finds people jobs and directs them to shelters and makes anonymous donations to those who could use them; J helps repair leaky roofs and gets people in touch with friends who offer affordable daycare or can help you navigate bureaucratic hurdles pro bono.)

The Jester gets along surprisingly well with Batman, whose stern demeanour belies a dry, subtle sense of humour that tends toward a faintly British style of cynicism. (When J learns that Alfred the Actual English Butler works for the big bad bat, he is delighted. Batman’s batman, ha!) They make an amazingly effective straight man/funny guy duo, Batman setting him up almost undetectably so that J can then knock the punchlines out of the park. (This in itself is ironic, since the Jester is the only one of the pair who’s shown any compelling evidence of being straight by merit of falling in love with and subsequently marrying a beautiful, vivacious woman. Catwoman aside – J’s inclined to think that what’s going on there has more to do with the Dark Knight’s savior complex than heterosexuality per se, since otherwise Batman shows about as much sexual proclivity as a particularly introverted rock. Which is very professional, all told.)

(The first time the two of them cross paths for more than a minute or two, Batman is staking out a building from one of the Jester’s rooftops when a grating half-whisper a few inches behind his right ear says, Ooh, what are we going to do tonight, Brain? Batman suppresses the instinctive motion toward violence with only a small, barely-visible twitch. He lowers his binoculars for a moment to glance directly into a huge, ghoulish red grin that quickly backs off a few more inches at his expression. Contrary to ordinary laws of perspective, the grin gets bigger. There are little golden jingle bells sewn to the Jester’s cap and the scalloped edges of his collar and tunic, but they apparently lack clappers, which is both sensible and slightly irritating. Turning back to his target, he replies, low-voiced, The Russian’s started moving in on the drug trade in this area after the sting on Falcone’s crew the other week. I’ve tracked several of their dealers back here.Supplier, huh? The Jester perches comfortably on top of a nearby air-conditioning unit, kicking his feet slightly. So what’s the plan?

I go in, Batman says. You stay out here. I don’t need to be tracking someone else when there could be gunfire. (Someone he’s unaccustomed to fighting alongside, he means, considering that the whole Robin thing happens at some point.)J sticks out his tongue, which goes completely unappreciated by the giant man-bat cryptid staring intently across the street. Boo to you, too. Come on, I do this every night just like you – I can take care of myself. And anyway, these are my people. I have just as much right to help them out as you do.Batman doesn’t move in any way that J can tell, but something in his posture softens – inasmuch as the difference between diamond and corundum, at least – and he tells J the plan. J’s grin stretches nearly to his ears. Twenty minutes later, they move in and pull it off without a hitch. It is awesome. And there isn’t even much gunfire, so there.)

Jason, now. Jason likes the Jester because even if he doesn’t let the kid put himself in harm’s way like Batman does, he lets him get away with more, and when he wants Jason to do something he’s good at phrasing it so he feels included, important. Meanwhile, J loves the kid even more than he worries about him – for the way he glories in everything he does, glories in the doing of it and the power and freedom to do it, drinking life down like he never thought he’d get to. Jason is sharp-edged in a way Dick only ever was when a case hit too close to home: where Dick is a being of the air, light and swift on his feet and so defiant of gravity that he moves as comfortably in the vertical axis as the horizontal, Jason is fire, feverish and fearless and prickly and hungry for experience, for justice, for affection and validation even as he affects to disdain it. Jason grasps for everything he can hold, stakes a claim on the rare people he lets himself care about, acts on impulse and doesn’t hold back once he’s decided on something. J worries sometimes that he and Jason are too alike, that they both bring out each other’s worst qualities and one day he’ll forget himself and it’ll all end in tears.

(Don’t, Batman says when J mentions it to him. You’re the only one he always listens to. Unspoken: Batman trusts the Jester’s way of handling Jason more than his own. This is the night after J talked the kid down from beating a child trafficker into unconsciousness, so he sees where Bats is coming from, but given that his argument was yes, he deserves it and worse, yes, if the law doesn’t stop people like him then we have to, that’s why we do what we do and what you’ve done tonight has already saved those kids and others that would have ended up like them, so just hand me that crowbar for now…he’s a bit less confident.J stops pacing and throws up his hands. That’s my whole point!Batman gives him one of his many Looks, which here means that he should stop being foolish, as if that isn’t his very nature. J grumbles to himself and starts pacing again in agitation. The matter goes unresolved.)

As Jason grows older he becomes fiercer, less restrained, and J worries more and more until one day Jason shows up at the door of the abandoned toy factory that J set up as a base of operations, wearing an utterly emotionless expression that means he is inches from exploding.Disoriented by the sight of a Robin in the middle of the day, J stupidly says the first thing that comes to mind, which is Shouldn’t you be in school?Jason’s expression tightens, another millimeter closer to the explosion, and he shrugs and says, Dunno. I’m not sure I can afford it anymore.While J gapes, Jason pushes past him and into the factory to dump his duffle bag on one of the mismatched sofas in the improvised living area. He sits down beside it, elbows resting moodily on his knees as he glares through a pile of books that J should really get around to reshelving at some point and that certainly didn’t deserve this kind of treatment. Harley is out at work for the next few hours; J wishes heartily that she were here, but he’d feel too guilty taking her away from the people who need her. He’ll have to handle this on his own.(Oh, Harley. Harley Harley Harley. His bright, brilliant Harleen Quinzel, saddled with a pun name because her parents thought it was cute, worked her ass off all the way through medical school and sexism and mental-illness stigma of the worst kind just so she could do for other people what had been done for her; who did exactly that during J’s several-month tenure at Arkham following the whole…face thing…who introduced herself in precise, proper tones and then visibly braced for the inevitable joke.After a moment of careful thought, J said, Y'know…in the pantomime, the original Harlequin character was the male hero, pursuing the love of the beautiful Columbine. He grinned too widely, winced, then recovered airily, I’d much rather tell all my deepest, darkest insecurities to you.Dr. Quinzel stared at him, then conscientiously dropped her eyes back to his patient file before saying, like she didn’t know quite what to feel about it, You know, I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about my name.

She told him to call her Harleen, to think of her as a friend if he was comfortable with that, and called him Mr. J for lack of any name he felt a closer identification with. It was a little too easy to inadvertently make her retreat into scrupulous propriety, so he did his best not to say anything that would make her feel like she had to withdraw to a safe clinical distance; but then she told him that she was here to help him get better, it wasn’t his job to worry about her, and to say anything he wanted to talk about, so he did his best to obey and tried not to get attached to the little warm glow of self-worth that bubbled up in his chest whenever he managed to make her laugh. A month and a half later, she told him she would be resigning from Arkham the following week. Ethics reasons.But, he protested, Har– Dr. Quinzel – you shouldn’t just throw away your whole life! I’ll be out of here any week now, you said, and you do so much good here—Dr. Quinzel waited until he ran out of words, then said in that crisp tone, Mr. J, then smiled. I am not throwing my life away. With my credentials, I can get very nearly any psychiatric post I wish. We’ve both been as honest in here with each other as my position allows, so I hope I’ve managed to ensure a minimum of the kind of miscommunication that might cause ethical issues. And anyway, if we were to have a relationship, it would be inappropriate to continue holding a job where I’d still be counseling you beyond the scope of our doctor-patient relationship. She grinned at his expression, cheeks dimpling. I’ve been thinking of getting into social work. Kids and families, you know? That was my other top choice when Arkham hired me.)

He really wishes Harley was here.Jaybird, the Jester says cautiously, what happened?Jason shrugs again, that same hopeless one-shouldered rise and drop. We had another fight. The usual. I didn’t back down this time, so he fired me.The boy is fifteen years old and underneath the anger in his voice is so much pain that he refuses to let himself feel, so much that it hurts to draw breath, suffusing every line of his posture like he’s trying to armour himself in enough sharpness to cut anyone who comes near. The Jester sits down next to him, not too close, and when Jason’s body language doesn’t change he puts a tentative hand on the kid’s shoulder. Jason relaxes marginally under the touch, like he always has once he got used to J’s absentminded tactility, and J feels guilty again for no reason. He’s pretty sure the kid doesn’t do that for anyone but him and Harley. You can stay here as long as you need, he assures Jason, then asks, Want me to talk to him?Jason shakes his head. Not much point. We’ve already said everything there is to say.

J’s heart breaks. It’s not entirely anyone’s fault, not really, because Bruce has never really known what to do with his own emotions, much less other people’s, and Jason has more than enough emotions for the both of them, and neither of them knows how to deal with hurt feelings except through repression and control. Jason is a difficult kid, anyone would be a difficult kid with that kind of childhood, and J would bet dollars to doughnuts that Bruce felt he was compromising as much as he dared for Jason’s safety and couldn’t understand why Jason wouldn’t accept what he was trying to tell him – and meanwhile Jason would have felt more and more unheard, unfairly restricted, invalidated and patronised. On reflection, it’s not just the Jester that Jason is too similar to.What a mess. He could really use his wife’s skillset right about now.Jason is leaning just very slightly into the contact in a way that says he doesn’t realise he’s doing it, so J takes a chance and slides his arm around the kid’s shoulders, giving him something warm and solid to ground himself against. Gradually Jason melts into the touch, and they end up with the Jester’s arms wrapped around him and Jason breathing deep shuddering breaths against his collarbone, not crying, J can’t remember ever seeing Jason cry and as far as he knows the kid doesn’t. J pats him awkwardly and says stupid comforting reassurances, things like don’t worry and it’s okay, it’ll be alright and you’re okay, there’s nothing wrong with you, no one’s gonna make you leave and eventually those shuddering breaths slow and Jason says, muffled, into his shirt, Any chance you could use a sidekick?The Jester can’t say no. He does say, You know he cares about you, right? He worries about you so much. He doesn’t use the word love, doesn’t dare; Jason would never accept that, would never let himself believe it from anyone, and J’s never heard him say it to anyone, either. Too many scars.Sure, says Jason, and he just sounds exhausted now, wrung out from carrying and releasing more emotion than any person has the strength to hold, much less a lonely teen with PTSD and major trust issues. He just doesn’t see me as a person.There’s nothing J can really say in response to that.(He does, however, treat Bruce coolly and professionally when he sees him next, which is an unmistakable signal that the Bat has made his way neck-deep into the ball pit of rainbow-coloured clown poo. Bruce does talk with the Jester about it, and J answers completely and honestly, hiding nothing except what Jason would want hidden. Bruce accepts this in the critical spirit in which it is meant.)

(There is no Joker to kill Jason in this timeline, so does he die? Perhaps the Jester’s fears come true and he’s hoist on his own petard, burnt up by the same fire that drives him, or perhaps it’s someone else who dies – either way, the first time J attends the funeral of one of their own, Bruce finds him about a hundred feet away under a crabapple tree shading a scattered family plot, just within hearing range of the proceedings but far enough away to keep from obviously compromising the identity of the deceased. J is dressed up in as close as he gets to formal civvies, which in this case means a midnight-purple three-piece suit sharply tailored for a man closer to Bruce’s size and shape than his own, spats, and a wide-brimmed fedora to somewhat hide his unnatural pallor. Harley, who can at least pass unnoticed when she wants to, is perhaps among the mourners around the grave; he would have told her to go, if it were someone she was emotionally attached to. Both she and the deceased deserve that much.J gives Bruce a nod as he comes over, letting out a long breath as he looks out over the cemetery. After a moment, he comments, It’s kind of like that Pagliacci story, y'know? When your whole life’s about making other people feel better, there’s not really much room to have your own. He glances up at Bruce with a subdued smile, which is primarily distinguishable from his typical one by the lack of visible teeth. Anyway. How are you holding up?Bruce raises an eyebrow and gives J one of his Looks.J punches him in the arm, then shakes out the hand theatrically. Buddy my pal, I am married to a psychiatrist. Trust me when I say you in no way need to go there and we can stick to the tradition of sublimating our negative emotions into violence and risky behaviours, as is our prerogative as men.The eyebrow returns to its proper elevation and Bruce looks back out to the gathered mourners, posture changing not a jot. J can sense his relief.)(J is good at using his feelings to connect with other people, though. It’s probably because unlike Bruce and Harley and the rest of Gotham’s vigilantes, the law never even pretended to be on his side, so he got used to thinking of justice as something you had to make happen yourself, whether or not anyone gets punished. Everyone does the wrong thing sometimes, after all, and what matters is that they stop so it can be made right, not that they hurt for it. That’s why his first instinct is to validate why someone’s doing whatever they’re doing, whether or not he agrees with it.

The ancient Greeks had this thing, catharsis, that was the purpose of all those tragic plays. Everyone would get together to watch an hour-long portrayal of all the follies of man (and woman, &c.) and take comfort in the fact that they weren’t alone in their mistakes and their struggles, that everyone around them was feeling the same way they were, and they’d go home afterward and be a little more understanding with each other for a while, a little more forgiving of themselves. The Jester once talked Mr. Freeze down that way when Freeze had frozen him to the floor and he couldn’t reach any of his gadgets – just stood and acknowledged his pain, acknowledged the reasons he was doing the things he did, acknowledged that when you’ve been hurt and wronged so badly it’s impossible not to want to lash out and make everyone see what was done to you with no one to care. Freeze had stopped in his tracks, threatened him and his loved ones, ranted about the injustices he’d borne whenever the Jester gave him an opening to…and his expression became more and more confused when J kept agreeing with him, more and more unsettled and lost because he couldn’t imagine anyone being on his side, and by the end of it his face was all tight and creased like he would have been crying if he physically could and when Batman crept up in his blind spot to take his freeze gun (while J tried to communicate solely through eyebrow movements not to do anything aggressive) he just stood there and let it be taken, then slowly crumpled to his knees.

Nora, he said like the name was being physically dragged out of him, Nora, I’m so sorry. God, what I’ve done…she would hate me.

Batman hesitated so briefly it would have been unnoticeable to a layman, then laid his free hand on the shoulder of Freeze’s cryosuit and stepped into his range of vision so Freeze could see what he was doing even if he couldn’t feel the contact, and said in his low voice, Then you’ll have to become the kind of man she can love again, Victor.

I can’t, said Freeze, shaking his head in desperate denial. I’ve done too much. She could never forgive me.

You can, said Batman. I’ll help you.

And me! J chimed in, trying to look like the entire lower half of his body wasn’t going somewhat terrifyingly numb.

Batman Looked at him, then back down to Mr. Freeze, and affirmed, We’ll all help you, while the Jester beamed anxiously in the background.

It was one of the more nerve-wracking things J has done in his career of incredibly risky moves, and he spent the rest of the day under observation to make sure there wouldn’t be hypothermia damage; he absolutely never plans to have to try that kind of thing on someone like, say, Bane.)

Bruce originally picks up Jason a few months after Dick leaves for college, and the Jester will most certainly never contradict his insistence that it was coincidence and not empty-nest syndrome (aloud, anyway). Batgirl precedes Jason by about a year, and immediately drives the papers and news channels into a frenzy of speculation about the new auburn-haired Bat, where she came from, why she showed up now. Batman vouches for her; Dick gets a little more detailed and says she’s infuriating – a complete amateur – but all right, I guess. Whoever she is, she’s not part of the arrangement the Dynamic Duo have together: she doesn’t patrol with them, but appears more opportunistically in response to crimes noteworthy enough to make it into police radio dispatches or the news. J assumes she’s more law-oriented than he is and keeps out of her way, at least until he hears about her teaming up with Catwoman to bag Roland Daggett for museum theft and an attempted frame-up. When J learns the details, he chortles like a loon while Harley grins ear to ear and looks skyward as if thanking providence for the joke.

J likes Batgirl! It’s true that she’s an amateur early on, but everyone has to start somewhere and she’s sharp and puts every lesson into practice as soon as she’s learned it. She also trades puns with him and Harley, so that makes her good in his book. She bonds with Harley in particular, which is probably inevitable for a pair of intimidatingly brilliant and multitalented women, and Harley ends up subtly mothering her and pulling out her family-counselor tricks when Batgirl vents about certain unnamed figures in her life smothering and/or underestimating her.

Batman definitely knows who she is, and J and Harley have vague suspicions, but they courteously avoid looking any further into it until Dick has his falling-out with Bruce and leaves to establish his own brand separate from the Batman-and-Robin duo that’s defined nearly half his life. Batgirl starts showing up more, joining Batman on patrols and at the cave, and by the turn of the season it’s clear that she’s taken Robin’s place as Batman’s primary backup and civilian-reassurer. She also ends up taking over Alfred’s job of remote research and logistical support, to which Alfred professes sincere relief. At some point they tell J and Harley that Batgirl’s true identity is Barbara Gordon, Jim Gordon’s daughter; all Harley says is, Well, I s’pose it runs in the family, and J utterly loses it. Barbara has that strained look where she’s trying to hide supreme amusement at their reactions, so that’s okay.

She forthrightly big-sisters Jason as soon as he’s brought in on the family business, which works out because he reacts to her exactly like an irritated little brother. After Bruce fires him, she comes over to the factory to hang out and talk with him, even if Bruce doesn’t. He tolerates her, acts like he isn’t grateful she’s there, but he doesn’t try to make her leave. After the first attempt, she doesn’t try to convince him to come back.

Your esteemed author doesn’t read the comics and DCAU’s Tim Drake is more than half Jason Todd in backstory and characterisation in any case, so I can’t say much about the other Robins individually except that after already driving Dick to become Nightwing (cf. The New Batman Adventures ep. 17 “Old Wounds”), Bruce takes Jason leaving even harder than anyone was quite prepared for. The Jester and Harley are perhaps less willing to help support Bruce in this than they usually are, so it’s a clever, driven young photographer who sees his hero becoming impulsive and self-destructive and realises what he must do to fix it. Tim treats Jason coolly when they meet on the job, and Jason makes passive-aggressive or aggressive-aggressive allusions to Batman’s tyrannical tendencies, but when push comes to shove they find they can both appreciate each other’s focus on Solving The Problem by whatever means they have at hand.

(Jason models his new sidekick persona after Puck, perhaps, the perennial Robin Goodfellow, avatar of mischief and harbinger of painful ironies. There has always been an element of Pan in the character of Robin, innocent and Dionysian, revelling as easily in violence as in flight as he subdued criminals with the same boyish exuberance as Peter did the pirates.)

Later, Cass probably takes joy in the Jester and Harley’s body language – so alive, so in love, laughing genuinely even when they’re sad.

Damian probably can’t stand the Jester, but then he can’t stand most people. J doesn’t stop trying to make him laugh. One day, it works. Damian is horrified. J is so, so proud. (Harley brings her family-counseling A-game to interactions with the boy, but even she has trouble making a dent in the Great Wall of Damian’s Judgment at first. She eventually makes progress by gently leading him into considering others’ needs and points of view, which prompts a good deal of troubled self-reflection on Damian’s part…which then inevitably leads to him blaming the “giggling harridan” for trying to turn him against his mother and grandfather, which Harley uses to springboard a discussion that somehow, amazingly, ends in Damian sincerely apologising. Which is probably a miracle of some sort.)

The Jester doesn’t join the initial lineup of the Justice League. In most timelines, the League forms in response to a major world crisis, and in that kind of situation the Jester and his partners are going to be clearing the streets and rescuing trapped or disabled civilians, not getting into the thick of things with the heavy hitters. He’s an acrobat with a terrifyingly creative mastery of props and gadgets, not a superhuman, and moreover he’s a local guy. Gotham is his city, and he knows its streets and rooftops and boltholes and major players as well as he knows his own heartbeat. This is where he can do the most good.

And because he’s just an acrobat with a terrifyingly creative mastery of props and gadgets, whenever he’s needed for something outside his usual purview, he ironically does best in a guerrilla capacity despite the bells and motley. There’s nothing like a decade of experience at having nothing between you and real actual flying bullets except surprise and agility to really hone one’s stealth and ambush skills. Also, he’s very bendy! He’s no Ragdoll, but if you need someone to steal a vital component from a high-security facility, just give him a map and a radio uplink, point him at an air vent, and watch him go.

I’m not going to examine every change that comes of having a friendly clown instead of the Joker in this universe, but I can’t let pass one difference of note. The “World’s Finest” arc, after all, was precipitated by the Joker tracking down a twenty-pound statuette made entirely of kryptonite, stealing it, and selling his services to Lex Luthor against Superman.

Whereas if the Jester tracked the Laughing Dragon statue to an antiques store in Gotham, things would have gone a little differently. He would have paid for the thing, first of all – with Bruce Wayne’s money, admittedly, Harley doesn’t make that much, but J’s entirely certain that Bruce is aware of the checkbook he once pocketed from his desk and trusts him not to use it without good cause. Plus it cuts down on occasionally having to choose between stealing someone’s actual valuables or risking something important falling into dangerous hands.

While Harley goes into the shop to charm the proprietor with a pair of big baby blues and a forged check, the Jester pops over a few blocks to call the Daily Planet via payphone.

Hi, he tells the receptionist, uh, what do I do if I have an anonymous tip for Lois Lane?

The receptionist tells him she’ll transfer him to Ms. Lane’s private line. He taps his pointy-toed shoe restlessly as he waits.

When Ms. Lane picks up, the Jester says, Yeah, so, I have a question. How would you dispose of twenty pounds of radioactive green rock?

After a moment, Lois replies, incredulous, Is this a threat?

Ah, says the Jester, no. Nooo. I can assure you I have only the best of intentions, hence my asking your advice.

Because calling with an anonymous tip and then phrasing it like that is actually very ominous, Lois points out.

Right, says the the Jester. Sorry about that. I didn’t want to assume anything, so.

Assume anything? J can hear the raised eyebrow.

You know, says J, on the outside chance that, say, you didn’t actually want it destroyed because your friend’s heroic persona is a ruse and you’re being coerced into giving him good publicity. I didn’t want to say it aloud. He probably could have sent a letter instead, but super-sight and X-ray vision are just as much of a hazard in that sense.

Huh, says Lois. Usually when we get crank calls, we don’t get them from a real, live crank. I mean, every so often you get a conspiracist who trusts the media enough to come to us, but usually it’s just people who think the fact that they got screwed over means the whole system’s in on it.

I did say ‘outside chance’, didn’t I? J makes his voice indignant, but he’s not actually all that bothered. He’s a costumed vigilante, certain kinds of consideration are going to sound like paranoia to normals who aren’t used to it. Even if he would have expected better from Superman’s favourite journalist.

You’re right, admits Lois. That’s…very considerate. Thank you. I’m fine, though. I’ll…just go check on the answer to your question now. Can you hold?

A few minutes later, she’s back on the line: You can dissolve it in acid, such as hydrochloric acid at a concentration of about 30% or higher.

Awesome, says the Jester. Thanks. Good luck with your reporting.

They save a sliver, of course, and to prevent it from going astray they give it to Batman for highest-security safekeeping. Just in case.

#crisis on two earths #Earth 3 #owlman #the joker #batman #the jester #dick grayson #jason todd #harley quinn #barbara gordon #mr. freeze #lois lane #meta fic #(i'm calling the good clown the jester per usual because i’m coming at these characters via crisis on two earths)#(and because it's easier to differentiate him from the joker where relevant if their names aren't quite so similar)

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pope-francis-quotes · 7 years

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31st May >> Pope Francis' Address at Today's General Audience: On the Holy Spirit and Hope ~ ‘Not only does the Holy Spirit make us capable of hoping, but also to be sowers of hope’ This morning’s General Audience was held at 9:20 in St. Peter’s Square, where the Holy Father Francis met with groups of pilgrims and faithful from Italy and from all over the world. In his address in Italian, the Pope reflected on the theme: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Cf. Romans 15:13-14). After summarizing his catechesis in several languages, the Holy Father expressed special greetings to groups of faithful present. The General Audience ended with the singing of the Pater Noster and the Apostolic Blessing. * * * The Holy Father’s Catechesis Dear Brothers and Sisters, good morning! In the imminence of the Solemnity of Pentecost, we cannot but speak of the relation there is between Christian hope and the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the wind that drives us on, that keeps us on the way, makes us feel ourselves pilgrims and strangers, and does not permit us to ensconce ourselves and to become a “sedentary” people. The Letter to the Hebrews compares hope to an anchor (Cf. 6:18-19); and to this image we can add that of the sail. If the anchor is what gives the boat security and keeps it “anchored” between the waves of the sea, the sail, instead, is what makes it go and advance on the waters. Hope is truly like a sail; it receives the wind of the Spirit and transforms it into the driving force that pushes the boat, depending on the circumstances, to the open sea or to the shore. The Apostle Paul ends his Letter to the Romans with this wish: hear well, listen well to this beautiful wish: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope (15:13). Let us reflect a bit on the content of this very beautiful word. The expression “God of hope” does not only mean that God is the object of our hope, namely Him that we hope to reach one day in eternal life. It also means that God is He that already now makes us hope, rather, He makes us “rejoice in hope” (Romans 12:12): rejoicing now in hope, and not only hoping to rejoice. It is the joy of hoping, now today, and not hoping to have joy. “While there is life, there is hope,” states a popular saying. And the contrary is also true: while there is hope, there is life. Men have need of hope to live and they have need of the Holy Spirit to hope. We heard Saint Paul, who attributes to the Holy Spirit the capacity to make us even “abound in hope.” To abound in hope means never to be discouraged; it means to hope “against all hope” (Romans 4:18), namely, to hope also when every human motive for hope fails, as it was for Abraham, when God asked him to sacrifice to Him his only son, Isaac, and as it was, even more so, for the Virgin Mary under Jesus’ cross. The Holy Spirit makes this invincible hope possible, giving us the interior testimony that we are children of God and His heirs (Cf. Romans 8:16). How could He who gave us His only Son not give us everything else together with Him? (Cf. Romans 8:32). “Hope — brothers and sisters — does not disappoint: hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). Therefore, it does not disappoint, because the Holy Spirit is within us who pushes us to go on, always! And because of this, hope does not disappoint. There is more: not only does the Holy Spirit make us capable of hoping, but also to be sowers of hope, to be also — like Him and thanks to Him – “paracletes,” namely consolers and defenders of brothers, sowers of hope. A Christian can sow bitterness, he can sow perplexity, and this is not Christian, and one who does this is not a good Christian. He sows hope: he sows the oil of hope; he sows the perfume of hope and not the vinegar of bitterness and despair. In one of his addresses, Blessed Cardinal Newman said to the faithful: “Instructed by our own suffering, by our own pain, even by our own sins, we will have the mind and the heart exercised in every work of love towards those who have need of it. In the measure of our capacity, we will be consolers in the image of the Paraclete, and in all the senses that this word entails: advocates, assistants, comfort bearers. Our words and our advice, our way of being, our voice, our look, will be gentle and tranquilizing” (Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. V, London, 1870, pp. 300f.). And it is above all the poor, the excluded, the unloved that are in need of someone who will be a “paraclete” to them, namely, a consoler and defender, as the Holy Spirit is with every one of us, who are here in the Square – consoler and defender. We must do the same with the neediest, with the most rejected, with those who have greatest need, those who suffer most – defenders and consolers! The Holy Spirit nourishes hope not only in men’s heart, but also in the whole of Creation. The Apostle Paul says – this seems a bit strange, but it is true: that Creation also “waits with eager longing” to be set free and “groaning in travail” as the pangs of birth (Cf. Romans 8:20-22). “The energy capable of moving the world is not an anonymous and blind force, but the action of the Spirit of God ‘moving over the face of the waters’ (Genesis 1:2) at the beginning of Creation” (Benedict XVI, Homily, May 31, 2009). This also drives us to respect Creation: a painting cannot be besmirched without offending the artist who created it. Brothers and sisters, may the forthcoming feast of Pentecost, which is the birthday of the Church, find us in accord in prayer with Mary, Jesus’ Mother and ours. And may the gift of the Holy Spirit make us abound in hope. I will say more to you: may it make us fritter away hope with all those who are most in need, most rejected and all those that have need. Thank you. [Original text: Italian] [Working Translation by Virginia M. Forrester] In Italian A warm welcome goes to the Italian-speaking pilgrims. I greet the parish groups and Associations, in particular the Volunteer Donors of the State Police of Campania and the AICCOS of Molfetta, as well as the members of General Motors. May the visit to the Eternal City prepare each one to live intensely the Solemnity of Pentecost and may the gift of the Comforting Spirit sustain and nourish the virtue of hope. A special thought goes to young people, the sick and newlyweds. Dear young people, put above all the search for God and His love; dear sick, may the Paraclete be of help and comfort to you in the moments of greatest need; and you, dear newlyweds, with the grace of the Holy Spirit render your union every day more steadfast and profound. [Original text: Italian] [Working Translation by Virginia M. Forrester]

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garywonghc · 7 years

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Don’t Get Stuck in Neutral

by Tulku Thondup Rinpoche

In the West, there are many who approach Buddhism primarily intellectually. In the East, many approach it primarily as a tradition — part of their cultural heritage. Yes, Buddhism contains immensely profound and complex intellectual information. Yes, it is an important cultural tradition in many Eastern civilisations. However, Buddhism’s true gift is that it teaches us to learn and experience the true characteristics and the nature of our mind and the world, as they are. Through meditations like those on lovingkindness, compassion, devotion, and wisdom, Buddhism trains us to improve our mind in how we think, communicate, and act with others and the external world. If our mind becomes wholesome, then our vocal and physical activities will become sources of peace and benefit for ourselves and others. This life will be happier, as will the next. Ultimately, through proper meditation, we will be liberated from the suffering of samsara.

No matter how much we study the texts, we need to be mindful of our karma in order to progress. We must stay away from unvirtuous acts and thoughts. But we shouldn’t fritter away our lives by engaging only in neutral karmas. Instead, we should exert ourselves in virtuous karmas such as prayer and service.

Some meditators choose to remain in the absence of awareness. In my experience, these are usually well-educated, high-status achievers. They are often so busy burning both ends of the candle in order to advance their worldly position that they even dream about earning at night. So, understandably, they feel a tremendous sense of relief when someone instructs them, “Just rest in the absence of thoughts.” At last, they can quiet down and let go of their busyness! And since the instruction to do so is given to them by someone whom they consider to be an authority on meditation, they don’t have to feel guilty about slowing down. They are told that doing this is good for their health and mental state. So for these fatigued individuals, having permission to rest without thoughts is new and exciting, something they have rarely tasted.

In reality, however, this meditation experience is a neutral state. Most of these people are simply taking a break while still in the middle of mundane traffic, still in the hub of ordinary karmic and mental habitual settings — without having purified, refined, or transcended their mental and emotional afflictions. So when they come out of that break, that trance, they find themselves back at square one, with the same old mundane dilemmas and habits awaiting them. It is like waking up from a wonderful dream only to find oneself back in reality.

Nevertheless, remaining in neutral thoughts and activities is better than spending one’s life in evil thoughts and deeds, which will cause grave pain. However, spending one’s life in a neutral state is a big waste of the great potential of our most precious human life.

According to Buddhist teachings, the karmic result of remaining in a neutral state, the mere absence of thoughts, is rebirth in the animal, form, or formless realms. We go to the animal realm if our mental habit was ignorance and stupidity. This realm is marked by violence and fear.

We take rebirth in the formless realms if our habitual thought patterns were marked by ideas like “Space is infinite,” “Consciousness is infinite,” “There is nothing,” or “There is no perception and no absence of perception.” Each of these four thought patterns leads to rebirth in a different subdivision of the formless realms, depending on which subdivision best reflects our habits. For instance, having a habit of thinking “Space is infinite” lands us in the subdivision called “infinite space.” In the formless realm, we don’t have gross bodies or forms. We don’t have gross thoughts or emotions. This is due to the past experience of remaining in the absence of thoughts and absence of awareness.

Absorption in the formless realm can last for eons. Eventually, however, it ends. And when it does, we continue from where we left off — returning to our old thoughts and emotions, and experiencing the results of our other positive or negative past karmas. So taking rebirth in the formless realms is a break, a limbo, but with no merits. It is a diversion from the path of liberation, as there is no awakening of the wisdom of intrinsic awareness or discriminative wisdom. That is why Longchen Rabjam laments for those meditators who value remaining in the absence of thoughts:

Alas! These animal-like meditators, By stopping the perceptions, they remain without any thought. Calling this the absolute nature, they become proud. If they gain experience in such a state, they will take rebirth in the animal realm. Even if they don’t gain much experience in it, they will take rebirth in the form or formless realms. They will have no opportunity to get liberation from samsara.

As long as we make no effort to transform the mind, we cannot escape the ordinary state of grasping tightly at mental objects — dualistically, emotionally, and sensorily. A merely neutral state in which concepts are temporarily suspended won’t help us progress. As soon as we go back to having concepts again, we will return to the ordinary state of grasping we had before. It is like waking up from the escapism of deep sleep, only to find that the same mundane problems await us.

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belardtheworld · 4 years

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87 days.

That’s how long I’ve spent my time at home this year.

The shortest time I’ve been home in Singapore in between travels was for a night, and the longest, 24 days.

For those who’ve been on the road long-term, this might be nothing to you. For someone who only recently transitioned from full-time Singapore robot life to being a full-time digital nomad, I would consider that a feat.

I’ve not celebrated my birthday at home for 3 years, ever since I graduated from university in fact. This will be the third year I ring in Christmas and New Year’s overseas.

Knysna, South Africa

These are the trips I’ve been on in 2019:

November 2018 – January – Japan

February – Bhutan*

March – Laos*

April – Telunas Resort

Bintan Lagoon Resort

May – Vietnam (Hanoi)

June – Australia

June – Vietnam (Da Nang, Hoi An)

July – August – Japan

September – USA (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hawaii)

October – South Africa*

November – Sri Lanka*

That brings me to a total of:

4 new countries (Bhutan, Laos, South Africa, Sri Lanka) and 1 new continent (Africa!) conquered!

Plane rides always have a way of making me immerse in my thoughts, and reflect back on everything I’ve experienced. I wrote some of these on my 36-hour plane rides from Colombo to London to Los Angeles to Kauai (which drove me almost insane) while jamming to sentimental music.

The time has come as the year draws to a close. I can’t help but reflect on what a fruitful, tumultuous and life-changing year it has been.

Girls I played and stayed with in Bhutan

I’m truly humbled and very privileged to be able to live my life the way I do. I’ve visited developing countries that come from humbling economies and humbling families yet be at peace with what they have and live with what the Earth provides.

It fills me with gratitude every time I get the chance to be exposed to environments like that. It makes one feel truly lucky in the greater scheme of things, and remind us of the greed that humankind brought upon themselves and the misery that they cause themselves because of their ever-increasing need for more.

Kauai, Hawaii, my home base since November 2019 🙂

I’ve also had the privilege of being in places that truly make me feel like a home away from home, and places where I couldn’t wait to be out of.

All these experiences culminate to form and build myself as a person, through character-building, value-teaching moments.

Coming from small city Singapore where we’ve been sheltered, putting myself out there, I’ve experienced 2 near-death experiences, and outdone myself so many times this year, breaking so many personal records.

This year had been an intense one – I’ve never felt such profound kindness, sadness, love and fear, so much so that I almost feel that my heart cannot take it sometimes. So much is happening so fast, faster than I can internalize and absorb and accept.

This is what happens when I’ve been on the road non-stop for 2.5 months, over 3 completely different continents, cultures and environments.

Read my individual trip reflections here.

The monumental times that I’ve had which are edged in my memory, the adventures that have coloured my life, the chances I’ve taken that made me feel alive – this all brings me closer to discovering myself. It makes me a part of who I am and builds me to who I will become. It is also a HUGE motivation for me to travel.

My heart is full – so full – of gratitude for the life I’m privileged to create on my own as a digital nomad and full-time traveller.

Read: A Reminder To Celebrate Yourself Today

Truly, I am so personally proud of myself to have created the life I have now.

Outdoor jacuzzi at Brahman Hills, South Africa

Every time people ask me how I built my way to where I am now, this is always my answer:

Since I’ve started having to work, I’ve always dreamed of being able to travel more, to travel for work, and yet not have to be tied down to the corporate race through most of my prime. I don’t want the prime of my life to be frittering away. I couldn’t stand being a means to someone else’s end and have my life – something I am in control over – slip right through my hands as I trudge through each day to work feeling miserable.

I want to make each day count.

And here are the lessons and takeaways from being on the road this 2019.

Friends are your support system

You see, the thing with being on the road long-term, is that most things are ephemeral (except your suitcase). Most people will walk in and right out of your life in a blink. You may only have one night, one drink, one day, and the memory that you shared with them is all there is to it.

There are people I’ll never see again, but whom I’ll remember the lessons I’ve gleaned from. There are those I’ve never met but bare it all to. Then there are those I spend a day with and feel instantly connected to. There are those who’re from an entirely different continent who’s seen me at my worst and my most vulnerable, who share my burden that nobody else does.

Me skydiving in Taupo, New Zealand

Read: My Most Epic New Zealand Experiences (That Money Can't Buy) From 6 Months Here!

Like how a random chance meeting in small town Fox Glacier, New Zealand in 2018 over a common topic on skydiving would have us reconnecting over a phone conversation again while I’m in South Africa and him in India.

As long as you open your heart to them, there will be some who will inspire you, some who will show you a different perspective and outlook on life through their life’s trajectories. Some will have a profound impact in your wellbeing and life, even if you were virtual friends.

Each one of them will inevitably make a difference in your life, however minute it might be.

If there’s one pivotal thing I’ve learned to put more value on in my life this year, it’s human connections. It’s hard to explain how crazy it is for me to have met people in the most unlikeliest situations – at the hotel gym, Couchsurfing, at events, in a bar, through mutual friends, a mutual lover, on social platforms, common interests…

Read: Best Ways to Make Friends On the Road Without Endangering Your Life

The skydiver, pilot, surgeon, conservationist, fashion designer, photographer, teacher, military man, surfer, yogi, bartender…

People who’ve touched me, loved me, broke me, warned me, healed me, changed me.

I know I wouldn’t have felt so much, learned so much, grown so much, if I didn’t put myself out there, be vulnerable, or had I not opened my heart to these people in my life. I don’t know if I would have done it any different, but I sure as hell have a lot to learn from them, and myself.

Listening to their stories made me feel so fortunate to come from a loving, intact family, for parents who do everything they can to make sure I’m brought up as well as possible, who do their utmost to keep the family together as humanely possible as they can, who are as loving as they possibly know how and who teach us the values to be a moral, upright person.

It makes me marvel at fate and the power of human connections.

It’s also nice to get some recognition from the friends from home whom I’ve not spoken to since school. I love receiving random messages from people telling me how proud they are of me for what I’m doing, and how happy they are for me. I’m happy that my path has allowed me to rekindle old friendships over beers and deep conversations. Wei Quan, Zhi Kai, Scott, Yeni – thank you for your love!

The meaning of travel

The Old Rectory Hotel & Spa, Plettenberg Bay

Wine tasting at Ken Forrester Vineyards, Stellenbosch

Breakfast on our room deck, Turbine Boutique Hotel & Spa

Sure, I love my glamorous lifestyle (when I do live them). But there’s more to it than travelling glamorously.

It’s as if the more you see, the more you leave a part of you in those places, And the more those places leave us with something.

While it used to be crossing countries, destinations, experiences or continents, lately I’ve learned to travel slowly, to find meaning in the places I’ve been, to make a difference in the lives I encounter along the way.

It’s taught me to follow my heart to where it leads me, even if it means going back there again.

Am I a person driven by emotions? Admittedly very much so, my oftentimes irrational, naive emotions. Emotions that lead to wrong decisions and detours. Yet it is these emotions that brings life to living, that brings sparkles to my eyes, that warms my heart and that feeds my soul.

And that’s the only way I know how.

View from Cape View Clifton

Travelling gives me so much love, hope, magic and joy that I could never find anywhere else.

The infinite possibilities of meeting the wonderful people I’ve yet to meet, the beautiful places that would leave me speechless and make me dream of living in forever, experiences that would take me ten thousand feet high and in the depths of the ocean, the opportunity to walk in the shoes of lives I might possibly be in in another life – these can’t be substituted with anything else.

I’ve learned so much from living with people, from following my heart, from my mistakes, from picking up the pieces of the mess I walked right into. I console myself with the fact that sometimes in life, it’s the hardest hits that mould us into stronger individuals.

It teaches me the most important things in life, most evidently that money provides comfort but it cannot buy happiness. It teaches me about contentment, in human connections, in survival.

It makes us humble, grounds us, reminds us of our primal needs. Most of all, it continuously reminds me to never let anyone or anything make us forget that we have the power to make choices instead of letting circumstances define us.

That’s the beauty of travel.

I catch myself staring out the plane window (omg those 30-hour flights), the car windows on road trips, over the balcony, into the ocean, and up when the moon is shining its brightest. And that’s because I’ve learned to live and let live instead of continuously chasing after something.

The heart vs the mind

If there’s one other thing I discovered about myself and meeting people who’ve touched my hearts, it’s the insanely difficult battle between my heart and my mind. As much as I try to do right and be a logical person, I constantly struggle between following my heart and making rational (but-heart-wrenching) decisions.

Most of the time, the heart wins, and in opening myself up, I become vulnerable. This was why I’d been subjected to a lot of heartbreaking moments – being lied to, betrayed, used, feeling remorse… Somehow, I still find it in me to forgive, to believe in second chances, to believe in the good naturedness of people.

And so, the greatest lesson of all this 2019:

When we look up at night, the stars are a reminder of the brief time we have on this planet. Everyone we meet, everyone we love, how we got here, what path we choose and who we choose to remember are all part of our story.

We cannot allow our stories to be written for us, because we don’t have forever. Sometimes, all we have is a single opportunity, and it’s up to us to seize it.

The more I immerse myself in wholly living, the more I know I’m no longer the same person. I feel like a completely, totally different being. This scares me as much as I embrace this me.

Peace and love to all, Bel

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2019 in Review – Life Lessons from A Year of Full-Time Travel 87 days. That’s how long I’ve spent my time at home this year. The shortest time I’ve been…

#Inspiration #Personal #Travel

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