The Transience of Her

The Revelation, Part 2

I ask the mysterious man.

“Then... who are you? The owner of the avatar named Andth'oy Cuathra in Skypaths Online?”

“Names don't matter in this very moment. This matters.”

And by this, he means a letter that is being handed to me by himself.

I reply...

“OK, I won't press you any further.”

“Good. By reading this letter, you should learn a side of your friend Lianna, a.k.a. Linnia, that you still don't know about, despite you and her being the best of friends for years.”

“Ah, I see.”

“I know for a fact that you are both passionate gamers, are both alternative rock fans, and are both technology enthusiasts. But this letter... will change your opinion of her. Or maybe not. That will depend on your reaction afterwards. I'm the messenger, after all.”

I open the neatly-folded letter, sealed with red wax.

The contents are in neatly-written, yet still girly, handwriting.

But the fancy and cutesy handwriting contrasts with the seemingly serious tone of the letter.

I start reading.

To you, who is reading this combined letter, essay, and manifesto,

Let this be clear.

I want to accomplish this one little yet big wish of mine.

I want to be a political analyst.

My goal in life is to fix the currently-broken political system.

Becoming a much-venerated voice who analyzes issues that can and will affect humanity is my path to that goal.

People have a simple innate wish in their own hearts: To better their own lives.

But with their own flaws, they inadvertently make each other's lives worse.

I acknowledge that it's a dog-eat-dog, zero-sum-game world.

But I must do something about it.

I realize how all sides of the politico-societal spectrum have their own glaring flaws that more often than not mutate into escalated conflicts that can lead to the loss of precious lives.

On the left side of the spectrum, there are those who believe that human history is a long period of enmity between the privileged – they who come up with ideas to improve the means of production; and the underprivileged – they who are executing those ideas into reality, and are expected to be paid for the trouble. They want a war where the underprivileged must eventually win, and the privileged who are notorious exploiters in their eyes expunged from the face of the earth. They want a classless society, but who will lead them? They, who had just flipped the tables on the societal structure? With their bloodthirsty rhetoric that led them to victory?

And the equal distribution of everything including wealth? What if someone has a dream of making a for-profit business that treats its workers humanely? Individual wishes mean nothing to the left – they all want people to be mindless drones with only one mindset, in their own twisted interpretation of equality. They want fair treatment of everyone – and when I mean by “everyone”, I mean “those who already submit to the brand of thought forced upon their mouths, at gunpoint”.

And speaking of fair treatment, yes, there are minorities of different flavors – ethnic minorities, gender and s****l orientation minorities, age minorities, religious minorities, educational minorities, cultural minorities, linguistic minorities, economic minorities, and even lifestyle minorities. Those minorities, more often than not, join the left, willingly or unwillingly. But what they don't understand is that in a classless society, the concept of minority is gone. Diversity is gone. Everyone must submit to the concept of forced-upon ethnic, gender and s****l orientation, age, religious, educational, cultural, linguistic, economic, and lifestyle conformity by those so-called “thought leaders”, who are no better than dictators.

Humans are flawed – and the left side does not acknowledge their own innate flaws and instead regard themselves as infallible saviors who believe they are the only authority, the only figures humanity must look up to. But that defeats the point of a classless society, because the concept of a class requires leaders and followers. They want to lord over their status as the only thought leaders in existence, even far beyond their deaths. In short, they want to play God – the “one true deity” of the “one true line of thought”.

It's OK to fight for your rights and your humane treatment in society regardless of your status, but must you imbue rage and hatred just to get your point across? And when you've achieved victory, you'll still continue your blood-thirst to ensure that your brand of so-called “order” doesn't devolve into chaos, which will most likely be the actual result of your seething continuum. Because there will still be people who will not align with your stringent checklist of what you should and should not do or even think about.

Your “equality” is just a farce.

On the right side, there are those who want to maintain established norms that were put in place for years, for decades, for scores, for millennia. After all, those norms are what shaped each family, each town, each country, each continent, each civilization, and the entire world as we know it. Those are part of history, no question about it. But those norms are sometimes harmful to individuals, or sets of individuals. Physical harm need not be necessary, but emotional and mental harm is unfortunately a necessity in enforcing those norms, especially when concepts such as discipline are applied in an extreme way. Something must be sacrificed to maintain order, after all; and that is an inevitable and sad fact.

As time goes by, there will always be evolution. Science has proven that all living things evolve due to both internal and external factors, over long periods of time. Evolution is a facet of change, and no one should deny that. And what do those traditionalists on the right side do? Stop that evolution, in a sociopolitical way. Imagine a world without sociopolitical evolution. There would be no things such as feminism, LGBTQIA+ recognition and fair treatment, awareness of subcultures of all shapes and sizes, freedom of religion, s****l freedom, and most importantly, freedom of speech and thought.

The construct of freedom of speech and thought is one big long misunderstanding and misinterpretation by the right. It's all because they want to suppress anything left-leaning, to prevent communism, their number one bogeyman. They thought that freedom of speech and thought means “you have the right to say it, but not in a way that would offend our established traditionalist sensibilities.” You are no different from the left; you employ the same approach of forcing your norms onto the people in the name of “order”.

And there's another facet of freedom that they also heavily misunderstand and misinterpret: The concept of freedom to be rich. They want to have a limited government and low taxes, because they don't want others to avail of what should they call “rightfully-earned money”, especially if those “others” are lazy, do-nothing slobs whom they deride as “welfare queens”. News flash: Not all poor people, or even those who are not part of the so-called “1%”, are lazy. Yes, there are poor people who are being used by the left as proxies in the so-called “class war”, but there are also poor people who want nothing but better lives for themselves and for their families, and they just don't want any more complications into the mix. They don't deserve to be called whiny self-entitled brats.

And there's the alt-right. Oh boy, where do I begin? Believing that the mainstream right has betrayed them, this fringe group does its darnedest to maintain what they call long-standing traditions that don't mesh well with the times. They are especially spiteful of sociopolitical evolution, fearing that their kind and the beliefs that they stand for will be erased from history altogether. They hate to be forgotten, and they hate to be called as villains in future history books. But what's the actual result of their actions? They certainly won't be forgotten in history books because of ease of access to information in the modern age, but they will be painted as villains, all because their methods of enforcing their own norms are toxic and especially harmful to society. Mass shootings, calls for separation (and even g******e) of those who are not of their pure and true “master race”, discrimination of immigrants who just want greener pastures, objectification of women as mere slaves to the so-called “alphas” of the male hierarchy, unfair treatment of people who are not aligned with the concepts of being “wholly male” and “wholly female”, integration of church and state, as opposed to the separation of the two...

Humans are flawed – and the right side does not acknowledge their own innate flaws and instead regard themselves as the paragons of tradition. Tradition of what? Concepts that don't age well, like slavery? s****l harassment? Misogyny? Ethnocentrism? Xenophobia? Racism? Othering? They keep pushing and pushing those who are not part of their “clique” of tradition closer and closer to the cliff that leads to the abyss of memory. Again, they are not that different from the left; they hate diversity of everything because it challenges their own status quo.

And the majority of the right do not accept that they are flawed themselves, too. They hate to be called abnormal by the standards of the left, or practically anyone else who does not strictly conform to the standards of the right. They themselves want to paint their own picture of perfection, physically and mentally. But in reality, their faces and bodies are too ugly and wrangled, like those disgusting “dirty old men” or “fat bastards” in adult fictional works, and their mental faculties are twisted to a horrible degree by amplifying their own beliefs, not accepting those of others, as that would challenge their so-called “normalcy”.

Your “tradition” is just a farce.

Even the centrists – the so-called “third force”, are not safe from having their own sets of weaknesses that hold them back. Ideally, they are what is called the “synthesis” – the combination of the “thesis” and the “antithesis”. They, who have rejected the extremist ends of the spectrum, chose the middle ground, mostly out of personal choice. They have rejected the disgusting facets of either side.

But here lies the rub. Because of this “synthesis”, people from both sides have their own interpretations of the “thesis” and the “antithesis”. When people don't generally agree that the extremist beliefs comprise the “antithesis” and not the other side of the left or the right of the so-called wing of societal politics, that's where petty disagreements occur. And that's one major flaw in itself.

Humans are flawed – and the middle-side aligners are all prone to in-fighting due to the chaotic mix of beliefs, never coming to comprehend one another in fears of loss of personal identity. They may acknowledge their own flaws, but they also misunderstand and misinterpret the flaws of others in their own supposedly-unified group, simply for the fact that they are still flawed and have a long way to go towards genuine enlightenment. They are still selfish, to an extent.

And what happens when they are dissatisfied with the chaotic blends of diverse people who comprise the moderates? They can relapse into their old extremist trains of thought; or even worse, they can be batting for the other side, not knowing they will devolve into bloodthirsty monsters of their own species.

Your “moderation” is just a farce.

After reading this long diatribe of mine, you may most likely ask this...

Why do I even bother to take up political science?

I have a simple reason for this.

It's because of one game I've enjoyed back when I was a kid.

A game rich in story and political intrigue, where sides of both the oppressors and the oppressed have their own little sets of flaws that prevent them from being outright black-and-white heroes or villains.

It's considered one of the best RPGs of all time, I say.

I got inspired, and I went ahead and read the pulses of people online and offline.

I perused news programs, blogs, forums, social media, local and international news sites.

And they're all filled with opinions and takes on things.

And it dawned on me.

No matter how young or old, rich or poor, famous or unknown, the high-class elite or the rural kid, everyone has their own say.

And more often than not, they can be too pushy with broadcasting their words of belief of what they believe in and repudiation of what they call injustice.

And what's the result? Toxicity here, there, and everywhere.

It even gets worse with the rise of the internet.

Today, the battlefields are no longer on actual land, sea, and air.

They are instead in cyberspace, on the airwaves, on the many pieces of paper.

And those hurtful words that express their pushing of their own beliefs down others' throats can turn into actual bullets and other weapons that kill people, intentionally or not.

I weep for those who are willingly not part of this war of the sides of the politico-societal spectrum, of those who are unfortunate casualties in the crossfire, and especially those who are the instigators and commanders of the war themselves.

I want to be known as more than just the girl who likes games, alternative rock, and technology.

I want to be a political analyst.

Because my heart cries out for all people.

Because my heart cries out for genuine understanding.

Because my heart cries out... for everlasting peace.

Signed,

Lianna Riversdale

I stand in silence as I've read and comprehended every single bit of this letter of hers.

“Impressed? Surprised? Inspired? Shaken? Stirred?”

After this silence, I ask in a part-beguiled, part-disbelieved tone...

“How in the world did you get this?”

“Oh, that? I got that letter, when it slipped from her bag the day before her death. I called her out for her to retrieve it, but she was already far away.

“Since then, I kept that letter in my possession, even in the days after her death.

“And when I read it in private, I knew that I had hit a goldmine.

“With the role of 'the messenger of the written' accomplished, I'm now ready to tell you about yourself, her, and even me – our shared history you never knew.

“I'm now 'the messenger of the oral history of the three of us'.

“And before you ask, no, I didn't steal her first kiss from you.”

And then...

He finally reveals his own identity, the man behind Andth'oy Cuathra.

“You thought I was just an ordinary old classmate from grade school, but it was me, Drake Pasteur!”