Rawen's Musings

Yeah, you’re reading it right. Today I’m in a bit of a down mood and just feeling like letting a life-long grief, at least when I look at my adult life, out of my chest. I know some of you will try and provide some consolation, other may even shun me for my views on this but none of it will change my mind. So yeah, I can’t even begin to think about continuing my kin when I look around myself, seeing the world around me, filled with greed, a desire to torture and destroy instead of to build and care for. Want to know more? Well, stay around and listen to this weary “nomad”, stuck in the world to which he doesn’t belong to.

If you happen to follow my scarce social presence, you probably know I’ve been around for over three decades already. When my parents were around my age, I was ready for my elementary. I was among the first generation that grew up in a country that broke the chains of their Red Overlords. I’m the member of one of the first generations brought up in the values of liberty, mutual respect and understanding. In my specific case all this was highlighted by my default curiosity and “good nature”? I really don’t like calling it that way because it feels self-congratulating, especially when I’m addressing a crowd that barely knows me. Anyway, I’ve been raised in all the values so many people take for given. And I tried sticking to them as much as possible even if it gave me “trouble” or was met with little understanding and even mockery.

But now I’m here, at the age when I should be thinking about settling in and fulfilling the “trifecta of a man”; plant a tree, build a house and raise a son. It’s a saying in my language and as you can read, it’s quite old given the fact that it’s explicitly manly. Anyway, just reading the “goals” and thinking about the world just makes me scream internally “don’t even bother”. Seriously, plant a tree? Where? In this hell where it gets immediately removed? Build a house? Yeah, sure, let me just snap my fingers and magic myself the resources … oh, wait, I’m not an actual wizard and even then I’d be more proficient restorative spells rather than material altering, let alone summoning. Besides, philosopher’s stone was unreachable for the alchemists during their era. Take it from me, a random woof-shaped idiot, living “near” the alchemist’s metropolis during 15th and 16th century.

And now for the final “goal, raise a son. Or, since we’re not preferential anymore, raise a kid. Ok, let’s keep the “nobility”; raise an heir. And here comes the thought raised in the headline. Knowing my background and looking at the contrast of the reality, I feel like an alien. I feel like I don’t belong into the world where the ones that are to be our future are subjected to cruelty to “make them stronger”, that they’re paraded around as trophies, used to live their parents’ dreams or to be mercilessly used as a bargaining chip in removing the last liberties we have. And I’m expected to subject my heir to this? To try and shield them from the evil only for them to be inevitably “thrown to the wolves”? To foster a vision of a bright future only to tell them that it was all lie?

I can’t do this. I can’t bring myself to subject someone to such trauma. Sure, it’s merely my perspective but I haven’t seen anything that could change it. And from what I’m seeing, it’s not going to change anytime soon. Now, I don’t judge you if you decided to have someone to try and push against the world’s grief. In fact, I admire you for continuing in holding the light in the ever-encompassing darkness. But it’s not for me. If there is one weakness that hurts me, it is this. I can’t bear the weight of the “lie of childhood”.

R.R.A.