update from sparkleup
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<p>It is a fool’s errand and we are dumber than a bag of rocks for doing so, and yet we keep on doing so. It is so incredibly difficult to stop, is it not?</p>
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<p>And yet, as the Ode goes on to say, “To forge is to end and, and to own beginnings. To hone is to trade ends for perpetual perfection.” That perfection, it says, is “Perfecting singular arts to a cruel point.”</p>
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<p>The Ode is just a poem, it is no holy text — what was it Emerson said? The poet nails a symbol to a sense that was true for a moment but soon becomes false, while the mystic mistakes the singular for the universal?[^emerson] — but every poem is open to interpretation and analysis. The author of the Ode was not wrong. We shy away from those ends that hurt and any beginnings that might follow in favor of our dreams of perpetual perfection.</p>
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<p>This applies just as readily to romantic relationships as it does to familial ones. Ioan and I do this in our relationship just as much as ey does this when ey remembers Rareș. </p>
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<p>This applies just as readily to familial relationships as it does to romantic ones. Ioan and I do this in our relationship just as much as ey does this when ey remembers Rareș and every single Odist does when thinking about the poet. Our immortality gifts us the ability to do this to an uncomfortably endless degree.</p>
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<p>I will quote Sasha’s gentle warning here with her permission: “The danger in ceaseless memorialization is how close it lies to idolatry. To elevate the dead to such a status is to ceaselessly perfect the imperfectable.”</p>
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<p>Ends happen. There may yet come a day when Ioan and I decide to go our separate ways. We know that it will hurt,and it is easy to focus only on that, and hone and hone and hone. That is not all we can do, though; we can also hope that it will be with love, that we will go our own ways and own what beginnings may yet be in front of us.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>She’s right. Of course she is, I mean. Not only does she have more experience than literally any of us in this matter, but for more than two centuries, it has been a daily focus of hers. I have to catch myself from endlessly focusing on things I could have done better. Could I have stayed in touch with him? Should I have encouraged him to upload? Worrying about these things is the fool’s errand she describes.</p>
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<p>These are just things that have been on my mind, by the way, I don’t mean this as any sort of admonishment with how any of you are tackling the issues that have taken up the greater part of our worries the last few years. We’re just doing the best we can with what we have, and what we have isn’t always the healthiest when it comes to coping mechanisms.</p>
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<p>Anyway, beyond that, things are going well. <em>I&R</em>‘s release last month seems to have gone over well enough. I imagine that’s due in no small part to the preparation that Jonas and the rest of the eighth stanza have put into ensuring it lands as they’d wish. It has yet again come off as “just slightly too fantastical to be real, but sure makes a good story”, much as <em>Perils</em> and the <em>History</em> did. Ah well. I’m still proud of it, and I’m not unhappy with where we’ve wound up.</p>
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<p>Aurel’s off with Sasha now, and has been for a few months. For a while there, her periods of solitude were coming pretty often, and ey was popping in and out of existence with some frequency, but she seems to be settling down into a more predictable pattern. It’s my hope that ey’ll be able to spend a year or so at a time with her, if not longer.</p>
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<p>She’s been doing well, too. I think she’s really starting to come into her own as Sasha. Always in threes, but still always Sasha. She’s been getting a bit grumpy about the whole spotted skunk thing, though, and I think that, before long, she’ll see if she can find a way to go back to striped skunk. She keeps complaining about the shorter tail. Aurel’s been teasing her by calling it cute, eliciting the usual threats of biting.</p>
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<p>She’s just about wrapped up her work on the companion volume to the <em>History</em>, which she’s tentatively calling simply <em>Ode</em>. I’ve had a chance to read it and…well, I’ll let her share it when she’s ready. It will take a lot of work for it to have the effect she plans, and the consequences will be far-reaching for the Ode clade. She says she won’t publish it for another decade or so for reasons which will become clear when you have the chance to read it. In the interim, she’s mentioned a few other writing projects she’d like to tackle, all of which sound good.</p>
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<p>Debarre’s back with E.W., which is good to see, and given the fact that we’re now plopped right in the middle of a forest sim, they’ve come over to visit and camp a few times. Or, well, Debarre will come stay with us for most of the day while E.W. and Sasha go off and explore, and then they’ll meet back up around dinner when Sasha returns with Aurel. Debarre’s loosened up some, but I don’t think he’ll ever be totally comfortable with Sasha, which she seems to have accepted.</p>
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<p>It’s getting on bed time and May’s whining at me pitifully, so I’m going to go ahead and get this sent off before I ramble any more.</p>
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<p>We all send our love to you and yours, and hope the universe is treating you well.</p>
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<p>Ioan Bălan</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-10-29</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-10-30</p>
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@ -64,7 +64,7 @@
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<li class="done2"> <a href="015.html">Sorina → clade</a>: apology to Codrin, short, but promises more</li>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="016.html">Codrin#Pollux → Ioan + May</a>: talking w/ partner re them moving on</li>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="017.html">Codrin#Castor → clade</a>: to Sorina on moving on, tell us about yourself (nevermind Artemis, just you)</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href="018.html">Ioan → Codrin#Pollux and Sorina?</a>: May on immortality vs. relationships.</li>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="018.html">Ioan → Codrin#Pollux and Sorina?</a>: May on immortality vs. relationships.</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href="019.html">Sorina → clade</a>: finding her way back into being comfortably solitary, wants to hold off on A/V communication with Castor until she has things a bit more sorted with her emotions.</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href="020.html">Codrin#Pollux → clade</a>: moving on w/o partner, w/ Serene, attached image showing A/V working between systems, just a huge delay and limited bandwidth, Serene and Dear are collaborating</li>
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<li class="done1"> <a href="021.html">Aurel and Ioan → clade</a>: updates re: the clade fading to comfortable obscurity (doubtless TN’s stanza is still active, perhaps others strive, but just folk now), Sasha back to striped skunk now that TN’s relevance is fading, Aurel in and out of existence, passes on Sasha’s work, incl redacted version for Dear, will publish on 250th anniversary of System founding to give other Odists time to prep for the Name. Rareș died phys-side, became writer, one book dedicated ‘To Ioan’.</li>
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</ol>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-10-29</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-10-30</p>
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