The following is an excerpt from the famous treatise on matters metaphysical called The Tower - Is is the end? found in Brokmard, The Pendant of Blossoming:
... one day Urist was passing through a village destroyed by a goblin raid. Where houses once stood, only smoldering ruins remained. Three weeping brothers were the sole survivors of the catastrophe.
"Death all around us, the horror... the horror," they wailed.
Urist replied: "Life, in a nutshell, is death."
"It's terrifying!" wailed the first brother.
The second brother calmed down somewhat, and said with a resigned voice: "It was inevitable."
The third brother's face, upon hearing Urist's words, was brightened by a sudden smile. "It's for the best," he exclaimed, and Urist knew the third brother reached enlightment.
When we examine this text, we see that the the first brother represents all the people untouched by philosophy, resembling scared sheep in a dark forest. They see the danger and death all around, they realize there is ultimately no escape, and they are paralyzed with fear. For your whole life's past is just a string of memories stored in your head, and if old age or disease starts plundering your mind, it can rob you of your past joys and sweet delights, so as death approaches, mortals are reduced to a single moment in time - the terrifying NOW, where nothing exists but the dreadful jaws of death, preparing to consume your very existence. Such is the way of a common man.
The second brother represents independent thinkers who strive to control their animal urges and balance them out with critical thinking and self control. They see the brutality of death and their mortal fate as well, but recognizing it as something intrinsic to all mortal beings, they transcend the animal fear and slide into the resigned apathy - they know it cannot be run from, fought, nor solved, they accept it, yet their wisdom is bitter to them, robbing them of the sweetness of life's pleasures, for since the day they realize, every sweet human joy carries the bitter aftertaste of death's inevitability for them. Such is the way of priests and hermits.
The third brother then represent people who reached the of the perilous road to wisdom. They see and acknowledge the inevitability of death, yet their spirit is not crushed by the knowledge. They don't succumb to fear nor lethargy. Instead, they realize that if memories went on and on and on without end, and if senility, disease nor death would come to trim this excess of images and thoughts, the contents of peoples' minds describing what was, what could have been, and what might be would far outweigh the volume of what actually is, and the universe would crumble upon this gigantic heap of information, ending the Time for everyone and forever. So they stop seeing death as something horrific, but accept its purifying and garbage-collecting aspect that flushes away the old to make room for the new - for the vastness of the Universe has is limits, as does the depth of our minds. Such is the way of those few who are lucky enough to taste the true freedom.
That's why, even after centuries, Urist's words are sought by scholar and commoner alike, because like soothing balm prepared by an experienced alchemist, it provides relief to an aching mortal soul cast into the turmoil of existence.
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Topic: The teachings of Urist WrinkledBarrels (Read 611 times)