first cantus ◆ text

[curiousfortune]

My name is Saki Watanabe and it's been a while since I was last here. The feelings I have are still remarkably the same, but they're still a different teaching than some of the others here. The idea of war isn't something I know. Or, more so, it's thing that were I am from humans are incapable of. We have a strict Code of Ethics that we've been taught since we were born. The type of thing here in Asgard, then, isn't something I'm used to. Or maybe, to give a better idea, I should give an example.

In my town there are two stories we learn from a young age. The Story of the Fiend and the Story of the Karma Demon. Both are meant to teach us something different. The story of the fiend is longer, so I don't want to write that right now. That one is also more straight forward and tells us to listen to our elders and put the village above our own lives. The story I'm about to say is much different.

 

This story is from about eighty years ago. There lived a boy in the village. He was an incredibly bright child, but had one flaw. As he grew older, this flaw became more and more obvious.

He was extremely proud of his intelligence and looked at everything else with disdain.

He pretended to accept the teachings in school and from other adults, but the important lessons never really reached his heart.
He began to sneer at the foolishness of adults and laugh at the laws of the world.
Arrogance sows the seeds of karma.
The boy gradually drifted away from his circle of friends. Loneliness became isonly companion and confidant.
Loneliness is the seedbed of karma.
In his solitude, the boy spent a lot of time thinking. He thought about forbidden things and questioned things better left alone.
Unclean thoughts cause karma to grow unchecked.
The boy unknowingly built up more and more karma, and transformed into something inhuman — a karma demon.
Before anyone knew, the village was empty; everyone had fled in fear of the karma demon. It went to live in the forest, but all the animals there disappeared too.
As the karma demon walked, the plants around it twisted in all sorts of unimaginable positions and rotted.
All the food it touched instantly turned into lethal poison.
The karma demon wandered aimlessly through the dead, deformed forest.
Eventually, it came to realize that it shouldn't be living in this world.
The karma demon left the darkness of the forest. Before his eyes, he saw it, wreathed in a glittering radiance. He had arrived at a deep lake nestled in the mountains.
It walked into the lake, thinking that water as pure as this would surely cleanse him of his karma.
But the water surrounding it instantly became dark and murky, and started turning poisonous.
Karma demons should not exist in this world
It understood that, and quietly disappeared into the bottom of the lake.

What do you think the moral we were taught is? It's much more straight-forward. How would you answer it?

Comments

Video

[samantha_grey]

[Samantha listened to the whole story. She could tell, maybe, some of what it was meant to tell, but she couldn't be certain. There was too much context lost in the mix. The whole idea of a 'karma demon' wasn't clear to her, and what the teachings of the elders were that she was implying were equally unclear. However, it did produce a visceral sort of reaction.

She chose video. She had no idea if her appearance would evoke something or not, but she decided to be clear that she wasn't human when she spoke.]

Nothing. I wouldn't answer it, and I have no idea what it's supposed to teach. I can't find a thing useful in the story, personally, and I'm not sure I like its tone.

Video

[curiousfortune]

[She doesn't seem to react, at least. Humans don't look that way, but in her village most things have been mutated through some means. Humans don't look that so it certainly makes her feel something is wrong, but this isn't Kamisu.]

You're not supposed to like its tone. That's part of the point of it is to know something is wrong with it. The idea is supposed to be straightforward, but maybe it's different depending on the culture.

To me it reads as arrogance and selfishness isn't something allowed in this world.

Video

[samantha_grey]

Without the confidence to enforce your will, the things you try to do won't be accomplished. There's a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and a weak will does nothing. Selflessness is as dangerous as selfishness, and can be selfish in itself. If you think only of others, you sacrifice everything you are, and all that's left is a martyr's grave.

But I think it's something lost in translation. I doubt we were raised the same at all. Well, no. I'm certain of it. I didn't learn about karma until I left home.

[Audio]

[genreswitch]

That pride and self-service will lead to your downfall, and one should accept themselves as part of the village and keep from questioning the village's ways to keep from turning out like the boy did. Anyone who doesn't learn that lesson has no place in the village.

[He pauses. His village has very similar stories to that.]

I don't agree with the moral, though. Pride will often cause trouble, but sometimes, solitude is good and so is questioning what you grew up with.

Re: [Audio]

[curiousfortune]

And what if solitude and questioning those rules is what can endanger everything?

[Audio]

[genreswitch]

And what if not questioning them also endanger everything?

Questioning in and of itself is needed sometimes, and you won't know if it's the time where it's needed unless you question a little. Sometimes, the status quo isn't acceptable and you have to be brave enough to question that.

video

[iin2ufferable]

The moral of the story is that you tell really boring stories.

[ At least he bothered to read all of it... ]

Re: video

[curiousfortune]

It's not boring for my town.

video

[iin2ufferable]

Your town must be pretty dull then, if this is what they think is exciting.

video;

[afrozendance]

... I guess a possible moral is that you should not isolate yourself from those around them. No one is an island, and everyone and everything is connected in one way or another...

Re: video;

[curiousfortune]

That's are part of it, yes. Our town does things always as a group. Even when we become adults we're often in the same group as we were as children.

video.

[allbloodyhail]

Don't know about karma, but I do know a thing or two about demons. And if that thing sank to the bottom of the lake it's time to start swimming.

Re: video.

[curiousfortune]

They're not going to in the story.

video

[bythewaves]

[ Maglor frowns a little - it reeks of... well. He can't quite put his finger on it, but something about the story feels wrong ]

There are several there, it seems - one is, of course, that isolation is dangerous. Yet it seems to me that the main thing the story seeks to teach is "do not question". True though it be that to brood on one's thoughts without speaking them out is dangerous [ hello Maeglin ] - it is also true that to never question is equally so.

Re: video

[curiousfortune]

It's true that we should be able to think freely. There are some things I wouldn't want to not think about. But at the same time, for us, the things that could be questioned are too dangerous.

audio

[morphitudinous]

I have several ideas, but before I answer I have a question.

Do you have any idea what those forbidden thoughts involved?

Re: audio

[curiousfortune]

...Some of them.

There are ways our town worked that no one but certain people knows about. If we ask about it or do something outside of it then bad things happen. It's practiced into us at an early age.

[Voice]

[tonsofpun]

What's so bad about thinking?

I get the rest of the story, arrogance and being a jerk is bad, but that part just seems weird. Why shouldn't you question stuff?

What's the whole point of intelligence if you don't bother to think for yourself?

Re: [Voice]

[curiousfortune]

There are some things they don't want us thinking about. The rules that are set in place to protect the village, for example.

[Video]

[comeonthensexy]

Forbidden things?

Re: [Video]

[curiousfortune]

Yes, there's a lot of them.

[Text]

[not_sasuke]

It sounds like a bedtime story made to scare kids into behaving well and respecting their elders.

Unless demons exist in your world?

Re: [Text]

[curiousfortune]

They do. At least there are humans who become demons.

voice;

[necrowmantic]

Oh, wow! I wish it was that easy to turn into a demon! Did he get any other cool powers, or was he just poisonous and scary?

Re: voice;

[curiousfortune]

There's nothing cool about it!