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mind_the_muse: April prompts: If you aren't afraid of dying...
Apr. 25th, 2008 12:32 pmnotevendarkyetIf you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you aren't afraid of dying, there is nothing you can't achieve.
- Tao Te Ching
Yes, well... yes and no.
I mean, about things changing - of course they do. And yet they also... don't quite. White remains white... it may be off-white, dirty white, or even occasionally ecru, but it's never really black; gray may be paler or darker, but always, it is different from scarlet; the sun rises in the morning - it may be behind clouds, or I may not see it, but it does, and enchantments, as Harry is often relieved to see, lose their power. But not trying to hold on to things - it's a good thing. Sometimes. On the other hand, some things I'd rather hold on to. You know, important things. Ones that I've sworn an oath about. If I would let go of them...
Who would I be?
Also, about the second part, yeah, sure. I can do a whole lot, and do do a whole lot, not afraid of dying. Or rather, being able to ignore the fear of dying. It's sometimes important to, in order to get things done. In order for others not to die.
But you know, no matter how unafraid of dying I am, I won't be able to make our superiors believe in what we daily encounter. It won't make a bit of a fucking difference, really, even if I did die - I've seen so many cases, things that could not happen because of any other reasons but supernatural, and they still don not believe. It's fancy homicide. It's a freak accident. No, it can't be faeries, they don't exist, Murphy. No, trolls couldn't have trampled that boy. Of course that man wasn't killed by a werewolf, those are fictional only.
Not being afraid of dying - even if I did die, demonstrating - won't achieve that change. Which Tao Te Ching sort of couldn't have foreseen, of course; there weren't modern police departments back then for idiots to be in charge of. Well... no. Most don't believe in the stuff that threatens - and sometimes gets - those people anyway, so maybe the idiots above SI aren't really that much idiots. Only the lives that could be saved if they'd help out still depend on them, so they are idiots for keeping their heads in their asses, and me being unafraid of dying won't achieve changing their mind.
But what my being not afraid of dying can achieve, out on the streets (or in dark warehouses, or in Raith deeps, or even in the Nevernever on occasion) is me upholding my oath. Keeping the people of this city a goddamned small, but real bit safer.
And that's more than nothing.
Muse: Karrin Murphy
Fandom: The Dresden Files (novels)
Word count: 442
- Tao Te Ching
Yes, well... yes and no.
I mean, about things changing - of course they do. And yet they also... don't quite. White remains white... it may be off-white, dirty white, or even occasionally ecru, but it's never really black; gray may be paler or darker, but always, it is different from scarlet; the sun rises in the morning - it may be behind clouds, or I may not see it, but it does, and enchantments, as Harry is often relieved to see, lose their power. But not trying to hold on to things - it's a good thing. Sometimes. On the other hand, some things I'd rather hold on to. You know, important things. Ones that I've sworn an oath about. If I would let go of them...
Who would I be?
Also, about the second part, yeah, sure. I can do a whole lot, and do do a whole lot, not afraid of dying. Or rather, being able to ignore the fear of dying. It's sometimes important to, in order to get things done. In order for others not to die.
But you know, no matter how unafraid of dying I am, I won't be able to make our superiors believe in what we daily encounter. It won't make a bit of a fucking difference, really, even if I did die - I've seen so many cases, things that could not happen because of any other reasons but supernatural, and they still don not believe. It's fancy homicide. It's a freak accident. No, it can't be faeries, they don't exist, Murphy. No, trolls couldn't have trampled that boy. Of course that man wasn't killed by a werewolf, those are fictional only.
Not being afraid of dying - even if I did die, demonstrating - won't achieve that change. Which Tao Te Ching sort of couldn't have foreseen, of course; there weren't modern police departments back then for idiots to be in charge of. Well... no. Most don't believe in the stuff that threatens - and sometimes gets - those people anyway, so maybe the idiots above SI aren't really that much idiots. Only the lives that could be saved if they'd help out still depend on them, so they are idiots for keeping their heads in their asses, and me being unafraid of dying won't achieve changing their mind.
But what my being not afraid of dying can achieve, out on the streets (or in dark warehouses, or in Raith deeps, or even in the Nevernever on occasion) is me upholding my oath. Keeping the people of this city a goddamned small, but real bit safer.
And that's more than nothing.
Muse: Karrin Murphy
Fandom: The Dresden Files (novels)
Word count: 442
