Words: 541
Backdated, reactionary to this rp


His heart had been halved. It might always be- given the heart of an artist was one that sought to reveal views and perspectives specifically unseen or unnoticed by others or by themselves. Art was both a personal journey and a dialogue with others, but it always required deep emotions. Even the shallowest of subjects and counterculture movements, such as Dadaism, had begun with a reasoning and revelation deep in some heart. It was that emotionalism that allowed them to create catharsis in other beings- whether Orpheus’ song bringing tears to the cheeks of Underworld himself or the outrage of governments searching out Banksy. Art recognized that to obtain a thing was cheap, esteem often superficially and lightly given for purposes other than truth, and it was only the dearness of anything that gave true value.

Quenton pushed open the door to his apartment, looking around its dim grey like it was someone else’s space. The unfinished project notes strewn on the table, the single dish in the sink, and the abandoned clothes on his bed ere all familiar but foreign. He did not live there anymore any more than he could find peace with the doubt, listlessness, directionless and floundering of his fellows who banked on stupid luck alone to carry them night after night without stopping to think or consider what they were doing or why. It was juvenile foolishness to believe or act a way ‘just because’, or because of a ‘feeling’. There was no knowing without doubt. He was not sad his heart had been halved, even briefly. Commitment and doubt were not antagonistic. Conviction was healthiest when it was in spite of doubt. All the greatest deeds began with someone who dared. It began as emotion, but without the conviction to act no action was taken for good or ill. The Principles that all the lot ran with were against his deepest convictions. Athene’s ignorance and rank won the day and peace became sin. It became ash and bitter in his mouth. And at the price of that friendship he’d lain his convictions bare to earn….nothing. Not even a try of understanding or debate. Athene gave him egotism, which was not conviction so much as the desire for conviction and doubly worthless for its lack of conversion into conduct. The Eternal had been neither willing to debate nor prepared to strike without hesitance if Thraen had refused compliance.

All those ‘white moon court’ members were trying to build a dream on a foundation of sand.
He wanted no more of it, of their idiocy and their toppled-down court. There had to be members of like mind somewhere as his own, or at least open and searching for something better in recognition of the cracks around them. He needed to find them and keep going. He needed to find or build something new- whether others would truly be found or not.

teach me of any philosophies I might haf' never considered.
I can watch someone suffer and die wis'out feeling anysing

Quenton entered the strange place and closed the door, locked without consciously thinking about it. He crossed to the window, the coiling plants he kept there, and looked out at the city. There must be a clear divide. Operant conditioning. ‘To weather the test of storms, it must be cemented in the heart with uncompromising conviction.’