THE FIFTH LESSON OF AN-GHO

[Jentos 6899]

T H E  F I F T H  L E S S O N  O F  A N - G H O

 

 

Lesson V - On the Will, and its myth

 

 

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Spoiler

 

 

It is claimed that Man is given a will; that the many races of the descendents, and even others, are blessed with free-will. And though it is an idea, Will is also physical; will is movement, it is action. It is spoken that Will, that is free, unimpeded, shows itself by ability and ambition. One conqueror claims then ; “I have taken the World, I am free ! I know power !” 

 

But is he free ? Is the conqueror in control of his actions ? Does he control his very own desires ? Or is he nothing but a slave, a slave to the darkness that comes before. 

 

Let me ask you my dear reader. Are you truly free ? When you move ideas in your head, when you make decisions - when you transform idea into action, wonder; what moves you ? Are you more, are you free, of the causes that precede you ? 

 

There can be no true freedom, there is no freedom. Even thought is locked in the ever strangling grip of fate. All causes precede you, and they will be the cause of your every action, and every one of your actions will be the cause of all things. There is no freedom; there is no power. Only a bitter illusion too large in scope, and far too complex for you to ever truly perceive and piece apart. Indeed, how could the mind of a man ever phantom the roots of all things, of all the endless shadows that will mark their every action ? 

 

When a man is confronted with these words he will bitterly howl, he will curse - or he will laugh. He will say; “Show me my fate and I will do otherwise, for I now know!” but he forgets that this very paradox existed all along in Fate in of itself - for a man to know his Fate is yet apart of cause, and so he cannot escape it. Any sort of realization, any idea - even the realization of the loss of free will does not render one any freer from determinism. And so it is that I say, in this sense there is but a single reality, that beyond any nexus of possibilities only a single occurs as we know it in our own reality, even withstanding shifts in the very reality as caused by divine or mortal machinations of great might. 

 

No matter how much you think - no matter how you plan to evade cause, you will never avoid it, never escape it. The best you can do is lie, to yourself, and to others. Though you may rule the world ask yourself; why. Why do you rule ? What is it that you want, truly ? Because you could ? Because inner desires you will never admit have brought you to desire it ? Because you are the son of a king and have been expected to do such ? When a thought is folded a hundred times over, like a blade, the metal will become brittle. And so the more you think on what moves you, the more you will realize that there was never a thing such as freedom. What is it that you want ? Power ? Pleasure ? Why do you want these things ? Are they not nothing but inner mechanisms of your heart, of your soul, and of the lesser places of your body - of which you answer and on which you act ? Even when you fight for a grandiose cause - even when you seek knowledge, why ? Do you delude yourself into thinking the act sacred ? And even then - do you not become a slave to sanctity ? To your quest ? You cannot avoid your weakness, your actions and desires are never separate from other things, but are linked in a hundred ways, in an invisible web that forms without your own consciousness. 

 

Even the most base of your actions are not totally yours, they are forever in relation with others. The king depends on his subjects. The subject depends on the weather and his wheat - as the wheat must depend on the rain and the good soil. In turn, the ruler himself is dependent on the soil, lest his kingdom starve. And the simple man, the one who calls himself simple will likewise depend on the smallest of things, even if he lives alone, he must eat, relieve himself, and he may find himself in turn, yielding for communication with others, for beauty, for pleasure. But every action he takes is in relation to many others. Every step he takes is dependent on the very fact he has a leg - and the presence of the leg is dependent on the matter of his birth, or the fact that none has carved it off with an axe. And the very fact that there is a leg at all, for the race itself, is a fact primordial. The very fact that a man can gesture to his leg, and claim it is a leg - is bound by language. And language ! Language is the root of the formulations of understanding ! Language is the root from which we craft ideas, and how we communicate it. You do not know - but I have seen it, how differences in speech will control a population, shape them, bend them, limit them. 

 

There is no escape. You are not free. Even from yourself. You think you make a choice in freedom, but you do not. Think on this - consider all that comes before. 

 

Even the immortal is not divided from it, no matter his strength. Even the Aenguls are bound by cause, though you might call them great. Even a creature, that by sorcery, cannot feel, cannot think, is bound by all about. Even the Void can be reached, touched, used, in the end. Even philosophical death does not evade the presence of cause, simply because we think of it, use it, abuse it. 

 

You have no power. I have no power. My father has no power. Only God has power - only the World in its undivided form ever had will, for then it was One. Rejoice, for in our powerlessness we are equal. Even those called great in the histories never had power, for what would they have been, had they no smith to hit the iron ? Where would we be, without fire to lit our ovens ? Where would we be - if we had never been made, never been born - without our own very own permission. 

 

Know this however, that the more freedom you seek, the more you thrash against its lack - and the more you try to summon it, the more it will elude you. In the end, you will have had destroyed yourself. 

 

And now you wonder, how I can claim for you to act - how I might think this possible. The truth is that I do not know your future, for the complexities of the past are above us all. Though we might glimpse some - we never glimpse all. 

 

And so I say unto you; know humility.

 

| Et’az An-Gho, the Prince |

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[King_Kunuk 889]

Wrote with utter anger, a fell creature would read such a lesson of the An-Gho. A flash in its mind of a better time, yet a clear and vivid understanding of such words, for the where more true then every to it, and it hated that they are.

[satinkira 5982]

Spoiler

2 hours ago, Jentos said:

 

Nice.