Die free.

[akonken.livejournal.com]

I am not, I will be the first to admit, the most sensitive person in the world. I don't spend much time in my own head, much less anyone else's. Sometimes I'm a giant jerk.

And yet, just thinking about this guy, Nathaniel, I feel like I'm going to cry.

I'm not a crier, either.

That whole situation was f*cked up. Being trapped is bad enough. Being trapped in your mind is worse. Being trapped in your own mind with people stealing bits of it from you is something I wouldn't wish on the pervert that kidnapped me, much less a creative and kind man who never did anything nasty as far as I can see.

It was bad enough when 'the next big adventure' was death – bad for me, not for him, I mean; he was excited about it – but when it meant he was going to the Bad Place, to Arcadia, I got a little angry.

You know, if I was a romantic* I would say I fell in love with him for that day. For that day, my heart felt entirely wrapped up in him. I felt for him. Deeply. That's not a common thing for me. I'd kinda prefer to keep it that way.

But every time I found out more, I wanted to do something. I wanted to do something for him.

In the end, I don't know if I did something for him or not. I sure hope so. He did something for me – something intangible, indescribable.

When his world faded, I went away my own way. I let my feet lead me home (they're good at that), pretty much on autopilot.

Part of me's felt on autopilot ever since.

The part of me that isn't, though, is glad he died free. Because even if I'm sad he's gone from the world, that's what matters most.

When it comes down to it, when I'm down to the wire, I hope I die free too. And I hope when it happens it doesn't hurt anyone else. But you know what? For him, I don’t mind hurting.



(* I'm not a romantic, but it seems like the rest of these Lost are. If it's catching, I want to start wearing one of those medical masks.)

Ethical decision-making

[sotongeistooc.livejournal.com]

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No indeed. Ethics separate man from ape, badger or even particularly enlightened dolphin. It is both our boon and our bane. For sometimes we cannot take decisive action. And while this is a good thing, a righteous thing, the British way of playing fair, it complicates things immensely.

How, precisely, do you stop a crazed slacker from attempting to become a demigod? How can you prevent them from seeing through the purple haze in which they live their life, and recognise that their attempts are naught but dangerous folly? How do save someone who does not wish to be saved, and indeed would consider interference a black mark against you?

A dinosaur would use violence. But we are beyond such means. Violence is something that is so abhorrent to be unforgivable; the final line of defence that would lead to a saviour’s ruin. There were options before that. And opposition is fraught with difficulty too. “Play up, play up, and play the game” as Vitai Lampada – the important lamp post – puts it. But that is the problem entirely. The game is one that cannot be played. The game is one that must not be played.

And so ethics force the hand. It falls to wits and guile to unravel the knot. Trickery, clandestine and unexpected, must come to the fore. It will cost her everything. But failure to act will cost the world more.