Pyrrha-Nyktipolos
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- Posted: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 03:01:47 +0000
(story premise or very short story in itself? not sure where to post)
A society centered in the faith that all of time and being is one moment, life and people and objects a single undifferentiated thing, and that demarcations of this are human errors known as "noticings". Of course it is that these noticings are unavoidable to an extent, but are meant to be escaped with effort and discouragement and punishment.
A noticing is not a sin or failure per se, but an entity that stands beside a person until the noticing is conquered or fled from. These entities are something like what we would call devils or ghosts, some stronger and some weaker and some more capable of masquerading as humans themselves.
This society is formed of people, though, not gods or pre-linguistic and acultural holy beings. What sounds like some self-actualizing philosophy is often a calculated method of weakening the weakened, the valueless. Here, such things as acknowledging or combating one’s suffering or oppression are noticings and must be avoided and chastised by the carefree, in essence the "wealthy" (money itself is seen as a questionable poor and lumpenproletariat phenomenon, as higher classes negotiate with trust and credit which ironically is a noticing itself) and easy-living who are not required to think in terms of time and pasts and futures, plans and debts. These classes occupy a priest-like role, or would if the society weren't too fearful to give them a name or to keep account of their behaviors. To them, though, a special class of privileges is afforded as "exercises" toward their freedom from these ghosts. To kill without publicly acknowledging or remembering the act is considered a proof of their holiness, and is said to deprive the victims ghosts of energy by which to harm others.
Here one might notice that what might be thought a noticing is often only so if expressed or memorialized in some way. No social system fails to operate on internal inconsistencies, paradoxes.
Injury of any sort is a particularly severe "memorial", a physical mark of a noticing and is to be treated as ephemeral, unattended to and unstated. In this way the chronically ill and disabled are further made unable, with necessary accommodations are unavailable and the disability itself coming across as a sign that the person was too fixated, held too many ghosts. Self-injury is not just a noticing but an expression of one’s will to notice, a terrible rebellion in one's body that begs for the company of ghosts, shunning humans and their self-perfecting efforts.
But for some, these ghosts are much more than words or enemies. For some who are often already the ghosts of society, a noticing can become an entire being, a dear friend or even another world to live in, built of compulsion, love, ties, and a refusal to forget...
A society centered in the faith that all of time and being is one moment, life and people and objects a single undifferentiated thing, and that demarcations of this are human errors known as "noticings". Of course it is that these noticings are unavoidable to an extent, but are meant to be escaped with effort and discouragement and punishment.
A noticing is not a sin or failure per se, but an entity that stands beside a person until the noticing is conquered or fled from. These entities are something like what we would call devils or ghosts, some stronger and some weaker and some more capable of masquerading as humans themselves.
This society is formed of people, though, not gods or pre-linguistic and acultural holy beings. What sounds like some self-actualizing philosophy is often a calculated method of weakening the weakened, the valueless. Here, such things as acknowledging or combating one’s suffering or oppression are noticings and must be avoided and chastised by the carefree, in essence the "wealthy" (money itself is seen as a questionable poor and lumpenproletariat phenomenon, as higher classes negotiate with trust and credit which ironically is a noticing itself) and easy-living who are not required to think in terms of time and pasts and futures, plans and debts. These classes occupy a priest-like role, or would if the society weren't too fearful to give them a name or to keep account of their behaviors. To them, though, a special class of privileges is afforded as "exercises" toward their freedom from these ghosts. To kill without publicly acknowledging or remembering the act is considered a proof of their holiness, and is said to deprive the victims ghosts of energy by which to harm others.
Here one might notice that what might be thought a noticing is often only so if expressed or memorialized in some way. No social system fails to operate on internal inconsistencies, paradoxes.
Injury of any sort is a particularly severe "memorial", a physical mark of a noticing and is to be treated as ephemeral, unattended to and unstated. In this way the chronically ill and disabled are further made unable, with necessary accommodations are unavailable and the disability itself coming across as a sign that the person was too fixated, held too many ghosts. Self-injury is not just a noticing but an expression of one’s will to notice, a terrible rebellion in one's body that begs for the company of ghosts, shunning humans and their self-perfecting efforts.
But for some, these ghosts are much more than words or enemies. For some who are often already the ghosts of society, a noticing can become an entire being, a dear friend or even another world to live in, built of compulsion, love, ties, and a refusal to forget...