k) "Life Running Towards Death” (stealing from Heidegger, but tbh, 90% of philosophers and writers of any country which was occupied/non-existent for longer period of time would say similar things) and death meaning “idea, purpose, meaning, higher sense”, with the assumption that those demands this ultimate sacrifice or at least the readiness for it. No meaning in life without accepting death and service, and sacrifice. To keep to life, to want to preserve life – not only in terms of wanting to preserve one own life, but e.g. being attached to such a worldly things like romantic love, porcelain, family, self – is not to understand it and sentences one to not realising their own purpose and missing their time, and dying full of regrets. This is, I guess, the general gist of ideologies and religions, many of them, with changing accents.
And, imho, in your earlier fics there’s more tension between readiness for death and acceptance of one’s duty understood as above, there’s that need to be understood and remembered as a self, not a monument, to being remembered truly and via this – to getting some sort of immortality for the “self” (both drabbles about new heroes of SW ST have this tension in them, imho – “about love or fears that surround us” and “staring down from the fifty-sixth floor”; Finn and Finn and Poe and Rey feel this human regret at the thought of being forgotten or misunderstood by the future, the future generations or just The History, Hegel tm, and they also feel that having the little moments of their humanity, their hedonistic pleasures – aka preserving the shreds of the “selves” – would “make for a brighter story”) and in your more recent ones, the tension is almost gone. This, of course, might be also accidental, an effect of writing about different characters – although in the drabble from the same time, but about Luke, this tension is present, too (“each summer thronged the grass”). Luke still learns to let go of the “self” and still has some little, mundane and worldly attachments, even if only in a form of the tea set (there’re these two poems in Polish, one Miłosz’s “I don’t miss/regret anything, except porcelain” about post-war, and one Barańczak’s, in response to it “If [to have] porcelain at all, then only this kind, which won’t be regretted/missed when crushed by tanks”, and this is that tension in a nutshell, between life and ultimate duty, sacrifice, idea). He’s plagued by his feelings, his memories, his past, he’s in liminal space aka purposeless, meaningless, searching for the sense, in between the role of the hero and the role of the mentor (which, in sharp terms of adventure cinema, means death ;)), although he doesn’t know the latter yet. Of course, there’s water. And a pause/n-dash in the last line. ;)
And this tension is gone in your later drabbles, although of course it’s more like a trend, so sometimes two approaches appear at similar time. But e.g. that one with Leia and Luke for me, sniff, sniff. The “oh, the wind, the wind is blowing” (Rouge One) – Jyn is lonely, but not for long, because she’ll soon die and join all the others, whom she felt, joining The Great Life Symphony moments before – finding one’s purpose in life and sacrificing one’s life for others is enough in this drabble to get Jedi-like abilities, at least in regard to feeling the Living Force, The Life/Force around you, and to archive enlightenment (which, perhaps, is still a very European, very 19th century and later thing; certainly, EE national writers would sing the same, oh, dulce and decorum, feeling the beating heart of nation and its children as one’s dies, all the tropes, I think they shaped us all, in Europe, at least its big part, more than we think in everyday lives). Her lifetime of loose ends gets its meaning in sacrifice and death, and theirs, too, terrified and elated – and so, she doesn’t feel the need for the “terrified” part and welcomes death with the smile, like the most classic martyrs of religions and ideas. But there’s no more tension, there. And then, in Mushishi drabble, a recent one “who will ungrant my every wish” Ginko acts like someone who already archive the truest possible understanding, englithment and acceptance – when he feels the temptation of mundane, of attachments, of self-indulgence in the most literal sense, he chooses The Life Which Is Death, The Death Which Is Life – in the image of water, of course (I knooow, it’s canon) and returns to Mushi, to the most basic, primitive form of Life, filling this world and usually invisible. Atoms to atoms, a spark to the fire – or to the darkness, in this case, but it’s a darkness kind enough to meet him, darkness which rises to that overly complicated and trembling, and hesitant being a human is, before pulling him down when he belongs, into the first darkness, darkness without self, doubts and the rest. Down – so, a humility, a true humility, because Ginko chooses it himself. There’s tension, but almost outside of the character, character wins over the temptation wish ease, almost naturally, there’s no question what is right on narrative level. Death is a part of life, this is right, and so is right to die, the end, Ginko prefers to die to becoming mentor and ends his journey still on the hero stage. Very fitting, because he is a chosen one, the one touched by Mushi, and we all know what happens to those beloved by gods. ;)
Daaarn, I made the points to stay on topic and not go into my wild ramblings inside digressions inside my babbling – and yet. But I think it’s more disciplined than my comments usually, at least. And while I’m sure you won’t find anything new here, I hope you will find something amusing.
the rest of the comment
And, imho, in your earlier fics there’s more tension between readiness for death and acceptance of one’s duty understood as above, there’s that need to be understood and remembered as a self, not a monument, to being remembered truly and via this – to getting some sort of immortality for the “self” (both drabbles about new heroes of SW ST have this tension in them, imho – “about love or fears that surround us” and “staring down from the fifty-sixth floor”; Finn and Finn and Poe and Rey feel this human regret at the thought of being forgotten or misunderstood by the future, the future generations or just The History, Hegel tm, and they also feel that having the little moments of their humanity, their hedonistic pleasures – aka preserving the shreds of the “selves” – would “make for a brighter story”) and in your more recent ones, the tension is almost gone. This, of course, might be also accidental, an effect of writing about different characters – although in the drabble from the same time, but about Luke, this tension is present, too (“each summer thronged the grass”). Luke still learns to let go of the “self” and still has some little, mundane and worldly attachments, even if only in a form of the tea set (there’re these two poems in Polish, one Miłosz’s “I don’t miss/regret anything, except porcelain” about post-war, and one Barańczak’s, in response to it “If [to have] porcelain at all, then only this kind, which won’t be regretted/missed when crushed by tanks”, and this is that tension in a nutshell, between life and ultimate duty, sacrifice, idea). He’s plagued by his feelings, his memories, his past, he’s in liminal space aka purposeless, meaningless, searching for the sense, in between the role of the hero and the role of the mentor (which, in sharp terms of adventure cinema, means death ;)), although he doesn’t know the latter yet. Of course, there’s water. And a pause/n-dash in the last line. ;)
And this tension is gone in your later drabbles, although of course it’s more like a trend, so sometimes two approaches appear at similar time. But e.g. that one with Leia and Luke for me, sniff, sniff. The “oh, the wind, the wind is blowing” (Rouge One) – Jyn is lonely, but not for long, because she’ll soon die and join all the others, whom she felt, joining The Great Life Symphony moments before – finding one’s purpose in life and sacrificing one’s life for others is enough in this drabble to get Jedi-like abilities, at least in regard to feeling the Living Force, The Life/Force around you, and to archive enlightenment (which, perhaps, is still a very European, very 19th century and later thing; certainly, EE national writers would sing the same, oh, dulce and decorum, feeling the beating heart of nation and its children as one’s dies, all the tropes, I think they shaped us all, in Europe, at least its big part, more than we think in everyday lives). Her lifetime of loose ends gets its meaning in sacrifice and death, and theirs, too, terrified and elated – and so, she doesn’t feel the need for the “terrified” part and welcomes death with the smile, like the most classic martyrs of religions and ideas. But there’s no more tension, there. And then, in Mushishi drabble, a recent one “who will ungrant my every wish” Ginko acts like someone who already archive the truest possible understanding, englithment and acceptance – when he feels the temptation of mundane, of attachments, of self-indulgence in the most literal sense, he chooses The Life Which Is Death, The Death Which Is Life – in the image of water, of course (I knooow, it’s canon) and returns to Mushi, to the most basic, primitive form of Life, filling this world and usually invisible. Atoms to atoms, a spark to the fire – or to the darkness, in this case, but it’s a darkness kind enough to meet him, darkness which rises to that overly complicated and trembling, and hesitant being a human is, before pulling him down when he belongs, into the first darkness, darkness without self, doubts and the rest. Down – so, a humility, a true humility, because Ginko chooses it himself. There’s tension, but almost outside of the character, character wins over the temptation wish ease, almost naturally, there’s no question what is right on narrative level. Death is a part of life, this is right, and so is right to die, the end, Ginko prefers to die to becoming mentor and ends his journey still on the hero stage. Very fitting, because he is a chosen one, the one touched by Mushi, and we all know what happens to those beloved by gods. ;)
Daaarn, I made the points to stay on topic and not go into my wild ramblings inside digressions inside my babbling – and yet. But I think it’s more disciplined than my comments usually, at least. And while I’m sure you won’t find anything new here, I hope you will find something amusing.