Let’s begin by discussing a topic I think might have quite a lot of complexity associated with it.
What do we owe to each other?
This is not necessarily a question that we ask regularly. We focus so intently on our own journeys, our own travels, that sometimes we put this question aside entirely. For instance: I was so focused on this class, this precise moment.
As a professor there is a great desire, at least on my part, to craft, write, and give great classes. What do I owe you, for instance, as a teacher? Sage advice? Wisdom? Entertainment? Or is simply the practice of our shared art in front of an audience enough?
I am not sure, and I have given it a lot of thought over many Deochs. It is a good question to ask though: what do we owe to our friends and fellow Aislings? We can often discuss what motivates us as Aislings. We’ve done that enough in other classes: I wrote and devised a whole theory on it.
This really boils down to: Why do we persist? A frank analysis of this topic would necessarily include that we exist as a society, and a community. I daresay it would be a lonely, boring, sad day to wake up in Rucesion and find yourself the only Aisling in Temuair.
So we must ask ourselves: we are here, great, all well and good - but why?
Do we owe each other companionship? Presence? We wonder if we need to be here, if we need to be present, in order for our friendships to persist. In order for our companions to recognize us, to be a part of their lives. In the face of the static, unchanging nature of our world, though, sometimes this is exceedingly difficult.
Even those of us who bang the drum loudly about participation, the need to be present - we still struggle similarly with the sense of: why, exactly? What is this all about? Why am I here? What am I doing? I once wrote that I felt, myself, that persistence was a form of rebellion. In a sense, I still believe that.
A refusal to fade to the background. An assertion that the world is better with us in it, than without.
But this refusal, is this a refusal for ourselves? Because we wish to be here? Or because our ego demands recognition for the persistence? Or is it simply a refusal to disappoint others? And then, when inevitably, our friends vanish - when their temples fall empty and quiet, when their guilds no longer carry a sound except infinite silence, what do we owe them?
Rememberance? Memorialization?
Later, many of you may come to Naena’s Calavera event. I am sure you will hear about a wide variety of Aislings. Unusually though, the Aisling is not beholden to death. As we have mentioned, Sgrios does not take us to some magic afterlife where we are reunited with everyone we have lost. Sgrios instead marks us, and we persist. Aislings can, in theory, decide to return to the shared dream whenever they wish.
And yet, so many of us simply choose to….not.
What does that say about those that remain? Do we persist for any reason beyond stubbornness? I myself have wrestled with this question. Is it a desire to express and explore art? A reluctance to cleave ourselves away from…what exactly? Our own stories? Our culture? In the end this is a singular decision that we all must make. We can decide to yield to the static dominion of Chadul and the total inferiority of the Mundane process. Or, we can take a chance, similar to what I am doing now: that in essence, art exists for the sake of art alone, not for the sake of consumption; that the presentation of elements of the shared dream is simply put, enough - that we are in fact, enough.
We do not owe anyone any justification for this art, or our own experiences, or our persistence. It is manifest, by the fact that we are here, and perhaps even a handful of you are listening. smiles
In the end though, what do we owe to each other?
Gentleness.
Each of us has a different reason for persistence, a different reason why we return here, a different…obsession, which we cannot easily shake. All of us have known and loved, and lost, and still persist in the face of that loss.
We are enough, and so is our persistence; we do not owe any further justifications, or deliberations. The act of inhabiting our spark is sacred and holy, a gift given to us by Danaan and Deoch, and it is a gift that is timeless.
All I would ask of you, to those who are listening: Explore it.
There is no higher art than that exploration.