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brooklynislandgirl · 4 years

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It Gets You Coming and Going: Of all moral dilemmas, what's one that truly stumps you and why? {ginglymostoma cirratum}

Questionable Quotes || Accepting The question is posed in so very Anakin a way that it almost hurts for simply existing. There’s layers built up between the syllables that only someone who knows him well enough can pick out, and only the very rare amongst them that can tell you where they came from. The deepest is the bedrock of his anxiety, that deep down he believes himself so unworthy that it’s compressed down into the core of him and become the basic foundation of the rest of his personality. Closer to the surface is the silt of fear that he’s said the wrong thing and has reached the tether of her seemingly infinite patience with him. That she’s finally going to snap and savage him with tooth and claw, glutting on the softness of his emotional state until all that is left is something that once resembled the bones of his resolve. And she knows she’s mixing metaphors here but that’s how she conceptualises the things about Anakin she can’t pin to a board and press under glass. Not that she would ever do that, she finds it horrifying and cruel, especially when not that proverbially long ago collectors would do that to living specimens, murdering them with chloroform. Ether. She keeps from curling her lip.

And maybe for those few precious seconds when she can feel his gaze sliding off her and back to the edge of the water, so extremely uncomfortable in his own skin, she empathises with him. Finds it easier to make this about wanting to view himself through the prismatic lens he’s made of her, where every fractured splinter can be compared to the raw emptiness that sometimes fills his own mind and pushes everything out of the way. So he can lose himself in his perceptions ~and she can tell, so easily, when he is sinking in the stream of Time, which is almost always~ and escape for just a little while from the weight of everything resting on too fragile shoulders.

It’s entirely possible, too, and dangerously so that she interprets a good many of their conversations this way, focuses the spotlight on Anakin rather than herself because the idea of introspection makes her a little queasy. That she herself hides behind all the preconceived notions that people have of her that she twists and bends herself to fit into because without them she would be as shapeless as the infinite void of the darkness that lingers at the very edge of the Horizon in the deepest umbral reaches.

And of course she would also never admit to maybe spending too much time dwelling on the reasons why the question wounds her as a means of putting emotional distance and actual thought far out of the way ~out of sight, out of mine. Because it is not the easiest thing to answer. In fact she isn’t sure there’s one that would capture intent as much as interpretation.

The problem with morality as it would be defined by most people is that it is an arbitrary system. An socio-artificial construct that puts a distinction between right and wrong, or good and bad behaviour. And much like consensual reality, the guidelines of such behaviour are dictated by people. And all people are fallible. Even the Holy Father, though he’s not supposed to be.

There are other factors to consider as well. Does he mean specifically as the question relates to Sleepers? Does he mean as it relates to the Awakened as they, master and apprentice, are? If they are speaking about the masses, then are there certain cultural borders they’re straying across? What is good for one group of society is clearly not very often understood by others and so what might be wrong or atrocious in belief may have mitigating circumstances if viewed outside of one’s own group. Then of course there’s the difference between an individual's moral dilemmas and ethical ones, which are similar but still vastly different. Not unlike the Traditions versus the Technocratic Union. And this is obviously not what Anakin means because he’s never seen the heated debates that often took a twist at the dinner table between herself and her brothers.

She wants to tell him, that of course, there’s all of these factors to be taken into consideration. Wants to ask him what he means ~specifically~ in regards to whose morals are being questioned and she knows too that by doing so she will somehow manage to trample his self-worth because he’ll judge himself as not having spoken clearly enough, slowly or carefully enough. That he did not adequately set up the scenario and thus given her something incomplete to work with. There will come a stunning display of beautiful if heartbreaking physical manifestations of that internal grief and she might actually expire from the grief of it all. And she isn’t being nasty about it, she isn’t mocking him in that breath of silence as she considers all of this. It is something that she’s come to experience in the almost year that they have spent bound together by practice and...funnily enough...tradition. And she likes to think she knows Anakin this well by now, that however hard he tries to hide it, she will see.

She reaches into the bucket beside her and takes a hold of another chunk of meat and tosses it out across the murky water. It lands with a specific and yet sad little plop before disappearing below the surface. She watches the way his cigarette smoke rises up to wreathe around his curls a little wild tousled today. It’s a little ironic that she could see him as a dragon, and maybe there’s some Mokolé blood in his family tree, as much as there is shark in hers. But he’s still reserved enough that he doesn’t stick his converse down over the side of the decrepit little dock they’re on. To be fair, his legs are far longer, far too close to the dark, algae choked surface. He’s never had his calf nearly torn right off the bone and probably doesn’t need that experience. Not with his hand in the state it’s in, the way cold and weariness make his bones and joints ache with nothing to compensate for it.

And that’s the point where she realises that now she’s just stalling, letting herself drift along the paths of thought, further and further away from the question asked. So she breathes out a sigh and allows a soft curve settle to her lips that is neither exactly a smile or even a smaller grin. It’s something along the lines of patience made manifest, her natural inclination toward indulging Anakin, and it’s also...tired. The kind of thing that appears when she’s worked herself to the bone and hasn’t slept for days but continues to push herself until she’s at the exact point of inevitable collapse. And how often does she do that more and more these days. Doesn’t even try to make it to her room when he’s just as comfortable as his bed and far warmer even if it’s a slightly unhealthy symptom of his body’s attempt to keep his extremities in life-giving blood. She leans back, wiggling her toes out in front of her, though her legs are still covered by the broom-skirt she’s wearing, arms bracing herself from behind, slick and red, sure to leave prints she’ll have to clean up before they leave. “I don’ t’ink dis really a fair question, Anakin. I mean... dere’s factors. A precise synt’esis would define culture as a body of ideas; norms, rules, standards, values, an’ beliefs. So dat different cultures would derefore have different moral an’ et’ical impact. An’ mebbe even between one generation an’ anoddah, like dem boomers an’ millennials. I mean, you an’ me are kinda li’dat too, as technically I’m a millennial an’ you’re Gen Z. Between all people dere’s dis enforced, learned social norm dat are symbolically an’ practically reinforced an’ referenced in displays dat signal adherence to any specific system. Now, I know ya no talk story about all kine people, ya specifically aks me ‘bout my own issue an’ I guess...” She trails off trying to regather herself. When she speaks again she does that thing she does when she thinks something is important enough to give him the best chance of understanding her, but that slows her speech, gives it a brittle edge.

“Even as hapa ~being half Hawai’ian~ my mother taught me about kuleana. Loosely translated it means “responsibility”. It’s dis concept of reciprocal relationships between the person who is responsible, an’ the things or persons they are responsible for. As Hawai’ians, we have a kuleana to our ‘aina, our land. To care for it and to respect it, and in return... the land has the kuleana to feed, shelter and clothe us. Through that relationship we maintain balance within society and with the natural environment. But you look at the world and everything is for sale, raped by greed and the need to consume. To conform. This... this is a sign of what my uncle’s people call the Apocalypse, but not like in disaster movies. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll tell you all about that.

“Another concept is...Pono. There’s no real translation for it, it’s a concept that incorporates many things. But many people use it to imply righteousness, but not like the way it’s used in society today. For us, anyway, it’s a very strong cultural and spiritual concept for a state of harmony and balance. So you can see how they relate? By accepting your kuleana and making sure you act on them in the right way, you are living pono. Living pono means to make a conscious decision to do the right thing in terms of self, others, and the environment. And we make no distinction between human and animal or plant, in that way.” She slants that hazel gaze toward him via one eye slitted open to make sure he’s following along. “And I don’t mean that cutting down a tree is the same as say murder. But in a way, it is. You are killing something that was alive. You are taking its mana. If you do it with proper thanks and reverence, if you ensure that you are doing it sustainably, to feed yourself or build a shelter for your family, then you’re behaving within your kuleana. But clear-cutting an entire rain-forest so you can build a luxury golf-course and resort, displacing thousands and thousands of indigenous wild life and polluting the waters and destroying layers and layers of earth, not to mention the risk of exposing entire tribes of people who have no natural resistance to what are common, immunised illnesses? That is no different than slaughtering those very same lives in a far more expedient way. And I don’t know if you think I’m crazy, or if I am over-simplifying the tragedy that we as an entire world of people are creating and contributing to but you can see...the earth herself is restless. She is angry. And those throes of agony ~the global warming, the spirits crying out, the violence and disease...they are all symptoms of that anger, because people as a whole have lost their way. They trust too much in technology and in coping mechanisms that only breed more trouble...”

She’s momentarily lost in the weeds, but there’s no denying the passion in her voice as it trembles with pure and unbridled rage at society’s ills. And not just the ones that have landed on the Sleepers whom they are, in their own ways, charged with protecting, but the ones amongst their own kind and those of the others. “So I suppose, the dilemma I just cannot begin to understand is...with so much happening, and the world around us vanishing with every breath...why are we unable to reach an understanding. Why do we have to fight this war about whose mana is bigger, is better than someone else’s. And not just the Traditions ourselves. Our infighting is bad but we can typically talk things out. I specifically mean this war with the Technocrats. Their science isn’t doing much to improve lives these days and more and more people are looking for alternatives, for the Old Ways. Why not work with us instead of trying to kill or imprison us? Or why can’t some of us... Verbena and Dreamspeakers... some of you Euthanatos- why can’t we make a pact with the Wolfkin. Or the last of the lizard kings-” She glances askance at him a second time in a very playful and knowing fashion. Which is disturbing considering the nature of the remains in the ice chest she was tossing into the water just moments ago. “It isn’t like some of us hasn’t been busy keeping their kin fed. So I think just like the Traditions coming together, or the Technocrats forming their union, maybe it’s time we put political and spiritual beliefs to the side and just work together for the things we want. We’re all really trying to fight the same enemy, and I promise it isn’t you, and it isn’t me and it isn’t Bil..it isn’t any one person. There is evil out there. Real, terrifying evil. Take this guy. What he did to those kids...He was a disease. And like the healer I am and like...like the man you will some day become, we did what was right, for everyone.” Beth shudders then shakes her head. “I don’t even know how to answer your question, or if I did. All I can say is...there’s no part of me that has any shame for the way I live my life, and therefore there’s no moral dilemma. But if one comes up, I promise you’ll be the first line of defense for my understanding and sanity.”

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