IC Contact / empatheias

[alchemicals]

Private conversations / letters/written messages / in-person action threads

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Comments

[alchemicals]

Are you just intentionally missing the point now, or are you legitimately this dense?

[feistytrader]

I don't know. I've never heard someone say that nothing we do means anything before. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it.

[And going "that's dumb" and moving on isn't going to teach him anything. ...Even if he'd really like to do that.]

[alchemicals]

...What aren't you getting here, exactly.

[...silver lives in the woods and kimbley's not too bright sometimes

this is kind of a shitshow]

[feistytrader]

How do we not matter, exactly? How come everything we do is worthless?

[alchemicals]

There's nothing you can do that's going to make a difference in this world. Not really, not on any sort of permanent level. I'm not saying that's a bad thing - that's actually fine, it's the way things are designed to be, and I'm not saying I hate it or I wish things were different or I want to find a way to change that. What I'm saying is that thinking otherwise is delusional.

The fact of the matter is that you could die tomorrow, and yeah, people will be sad about it and people will miss you and maybe something you were doing will go undone and people will notice that too. Maybe things'll be worse because of your absence. Or maybe you're like me and things will get better because you're not around anymore. Either way, that'll happen and then...what? People will find a way to move on. The world won't stop turning for you. And even if the people closest to you don't find some way to move on from it - even if they mourn you for the rest of their lives - eventually they'll die and you're going to be forgotten.

That's what I'm telling you. Most people only last a generation or so before everything about them is lost or deemed irrelevant. I know for a fact that I'm going to last a lot less than that. My friend the nine will stop mattering the day he dies. The actual decent guys I've worked with might last the full generation if they get their shit together. And the ones that last longer - the ones that keep themselves relevant? After a while, it's not about them as a person, it's about what they did. Their name will be attached to their atrocities, but it all comes back around. It doesn't matter who did it, it could have been anyone, for all the world cares.

[feistytrader]

[...That's a lot to take in, and Silver wants to take in approximately none of it, actually.]

Who cares?

[Well that's a nice thing to say to someone who just sat and explained something to you-]

When you're dead, it's over. Who cares about whether or not you're remembered after you die? You still matter and make a difference while you're alive.

[alchemicals]

It's not making a difference if it stops mattering as soon as you die.

[feistytrader]

It matters while you're alive, and we're still alive now.

[Why be preoccupied with the future, when they're still right here, in the present?]

[alchemicals]

No, it doesn't, and I'm getting fucking sick of trying to explain it to you if you're just going to repeat the exact same point over and over again until I punch you in the fucking face. So drop it if you don't get it, yeah?

[feistytrader]

[...He opens his mouth to say that he gets it, but "I get what you said, it just sounds nuts" probably isn't the best thing to add to this conversation. "That's really sad" isn't a stellar addition either.]

Right. I'll leave it alone.