Something I remember from Crowley’s writings. Every man is a convicted criminal, but knows not the hour of his execution. It was from Liber ABA, which I translated into an Elder Scrolls, Morrowind mod, “Vitelius Estate.” (sig)

The theme is repeated frequently in the Elder Scrolls series. Most obvious, that every game has you start off as a prisoner, then rise to save the world. In Oblivion, Emperor Uriel even has a very similar quote in the opening dialogue. It sets the backdrop for “The Hero’s Journey,” where a mortal nobody disappears on some mysterious quest, trial, or sojourn, only to return with seemingly supernatural qualities.

But if they are doomed anyway, where is the ultimate victory? All a villain has to do is outlast even the most powerful protagonist. Perhaps this is why we are so willing to sign off on so many of the things we see happening today. Because after all, what's the point resisting? We won't be around to keep it honest...

Unfortunately, as is so often the case with humans, we seem unwilling to allow a natural experience to emerge as, more and more, our instant gratification and selfishness gets the better of us, and myth and legend are inevitably institutionalized into ritual and dogma.

Even though the hero is ultimately doomed, we covet their powers nonetheless. People are seemingly incapable of accepting it isn’t something that happens to everyone. Or often. They endeavor to artificially reproduce the process by manipulation, to the point they will destroy lives in their attempt to force what they selfishly desire to see emerge.

After all, what good is such unprecedented power as we see today if it cannot be employed to control the lives of others who are defenseless and made to go without even basic needs, who we then exploit by any means, even the most sadistic and invasive, to satisfy our many fetishes?

We seem perfectly willing to put people through these contrived “trials” unnaturally, and scrutinize their reactions, yet refuse to reward them for their willing efforts, even with a minimal subsistence to continue, unless we see what we were looking for specifically emerge to satisfy our deadlines.

Art is a thankless occupation. The experience of art is forsaken by our greed and entertainment obsessed society. In spite of exponential abundance, artists still are never afforded the opportunity to explore the human condition until they have published, which precludes the depth of experience that would bring authority to what is produced.

"You always say the biggest problem in this universe is that nobody helps each other." - Anakin Skywalker

THAT is what is REALLY wrong with Skyrim these days.

I wonder how we will ever manage to do what is necessary to sustain our civilization, if we are too busy punishing our best for not producing what we desire, or seek to take credit for. Perhaps we have honestly ceased to care. It leaves one wondering what even is the point of helping such a species to survive at all?

“Why preserve life, when you see what you do with it?” – Leeloo, 5th Element

"Save us already, so we can get back to ignoring the problems we create."

Well that was nice.

Do you want to discuss something now?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WithThisHerring

All I feel like talking about anymore is the cost of my services. Possibly because...

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheMasqueradeWillKillYourDatingLife

Still, foolish to assume it is something one could simply buy back.

Tvtropes will ruin your life. And your vocabulary. It did help me get laid though. Discuss.

I keep looking for all my favorite personal sayings and plot devices as tropes. Fortunately, my vocabulary as a writer is already sufficiently fleshed out to be immune to cliche-ification. I think that’s the "seen it all before" trope... XD

I'm actually immune to the "ruins your love life" trope too. Not having one to be ruined in the first place helps. I can see how it might help one get laid, but then getting laid is easy. Wanting to, less so. Particularly when most modern social conventions are as predictable as, well, most tropes.

More recently though, the "they-cut-my-[censored]-off" trope has come back to haunt me. I guess every good hero needs a contrived and entirely useless handicap. Which brings me back to “with a herring.”

And who are the best? All members serve to their capacity. There may come a day when your head floats back to your shoulders.

My friend, I wish it were true. Unless I misunderstood your use of the word "serve." In the real world, most serve THEMSELVES to their utmost capacity, and as little else as possible. Even with millions or billions behind them.

My head is well-grounded in reality. I know pirates like to say they serve when they serve up other people's work they contrived to steal, but somehow I don't think it's entirely honest to say they do their part.

I clicked on this thread thinking it would be a rant against Bethesda for making the player start as a prisoner in every game except Daggerfall.

Please, don't ever change.

And me "getting laid" was saying I met my ex-girlfriend-turned-best-friend-because-we-work-better-that-way, because we were both tropers.

Alkeno, from the sounds of it, you had pity six. Stop bragging like CWC and let's get to the topic on hand, whatever in Oblivion it was.

Criminal scum, I believe.

What's your basis for believing man shouldn't serve himself? If he is all men, and all men are he, then he serves all in equal portion with himself. That's fairness, right?

I had to run and look this up. "Meaning is to be experienced in the living action and suffering itself, in the unreduced immediacy of the moment." - Eclipse of God, by Martin Buber

The religious moment, when man meets God, is found in life, not in puffy, Socratic Forms. I think we agree, except how humanity is objectified and shamed, for being the ideal you imagined him all to be.
Yes, those Psijics.

Where are you getting these assumptions? "He is all men? All men are he?" You do realize we are INDIVIDUALS, right? Or has the hive mind finally destroyed what intelligence and self-respect we had to even recognize our own essential nature?

With a mentality like that, self-serving man is not long for this world. I honestly don't think he cares, being too short-sighted to realize immortality is just around the corner, though he will never be the scientists that helps develop it, content instead to "die with the most toys."

Of course in the absence of any justice, he'll probably be the only one who can afford it.

It's almost like you're saying, since "we're all one" (which is BS of the highest magnitude I might add), that the rap-ist who derives satisfaction and self-service through what he does to his victims is perfectly entitled, since HE enjoys it, and HE is ALL men, it must be the victim's fault for not enjoying it too?

Do you really not understand the damage to culture and progress wrought by a purely selfish and self-serving attitude of greed and vanity you espouse in these counter-intuitive assumptions about our "oneness?"

Reminds me of a Tori Amos song. "This we-are-one crap, while you're invading..."



What is my basis for believing man shouldn't serve himself? Simple. Assertions like the above which reveal man to be intellectually unqualified to KNOW what is in his own best interest, and in that capacity, incapable of serving himself (beyond the ability to ego-stroke, or satisfy his base animal impulses.)

It isn't that I believe man shouldn't serve himself, but rather, that he should WANT to align himself with a higher purpose, such that his view of WHAT is serving him also serves others in the process, but I don't believe he is evolved yet the capacity for such connections. This, in today's complex and wealth-empowered world, can be extremely dangerous, even to the same self-serving that overlook the reasons.

If man is so obsessed with the moment, with his own self-importance, then he is inclined too often to assume his mere presence alone will suffice to solve his problems, leaving him vulnerable to the exponentially increasing consequences of reality he simply fails to grasp.

Little more than an excuse for petty tyranny by a race of self-satisfied barbarians just smart enough to believe their own inflated rhetoric. Disappointing, but not at all unexpected. I have always maintained this race too weak to save itself.



I see what you are saying, but it needs expanding to clarify that moment is experienced separately for each individual. Personally I feel people put too much significance in the moment, and "being in the now."

A tyrant can, in this all-important "immediacy of the moment" contrive to remove all agency from millions of vulnerable slaves. In that moment, all potential of individuality to experience this moment their own way, which all are capable of, is likewise removed. Can you honestly argue that this would result in a net GAIN for what is possible at that "magic" moment, to reduce all possibility to the vision of one scheming self-important tyrant?

Vanity is truly man's most disgusting characteristic, yet he is want to realize just how much the context of this world suffers for it. The potential of billions of individuals at the moment (were they ever truly allowed to be free and experience it for themselves as THEY would choose) seen as somehow less than the potential of one egocentric tyrant controlling them all, and claiming the moment to be "his." That is our ownership obsessed material paradigm. It is difficult to imagine such a creature surviving as long as he has.



So science, gnosticism, and sophistry by that standard is not life? People who find truth and meaning by such a process are what then? Only life that lives the way WE say is qualified as "life," to represent that "meeting of God?"

It is like you are suggesting that just being there is enough. I came, I saw, I'm awesome. I deserve some reward just for showing up!" Most would tell you, it is WHAT you do and HOW you do it that defines you.

This discussion is more general in nature, not TES specific. So, I will move this to CD.....

Stay away from the god-talk. Just a hint.

Talk about overly dramatic. So far everything seems to be running fine. A little too fine if you ask me.

And who knows better what's in his best interest? You?

And what is this higher purpose that you speak of? What makes it worthy of one's efforts?

Save itself from what, exactly?

[insert another man's words here]

Or the CIA, which issues reports about things like biotechnology that are regularly ignored by this administration and the general public, just as an obvious and relevant (to the times) example. Basically, anyone intelligent and informed enough to make important decisions beyond the immediacy of their own selfish concerns. Becoming aware of such important issues enough to know what the right decision would actually be requires a certain level of selflessness, intellect, and personal dedication.

It is something you have to want to do yourself.


To safeguard the survival of the species? To improve the human condition proportionally by the technological means to produce abundance of essential resources we now enjoy (and hoard)? Justice, security, and a fair social standard of equality under law? To name a few.


Unfair monopoly, indentured slavery, biotechnology, invasions of privacy, theft of intellectual property, manufactured poverty, unnecessary suffering, total annihilation... The more technology advances the longer the list becomes and the less we seem to do about it.

There's only so much we can blame on "shock and awe." Time to wipe that child like glitter from our eyes.

Damn, moved to general forum now! That's not at all right for my idiom! XD

Careful now!

Chew the fat! CHEW IT!

Technology advances, meaning we no longer die at the age of 40 because we caught the flu.

A more serious discussion about this is impossible without political / religious talk.

Oh god the irony levels. Are over 9000. I can't take it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu8DJnR9zNw#t=0m15shahahah. I think this topic is best http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Rc8k_D3yYoE/Tw4IyOKMysI/AAAAAAAAAls/awgasVzJMfA/s1600/Stephen-Colbert-Popcorn.gif form this point on.

So you are frustrated because people are too shortsighted and selfish to improve the quality of life in the long term, is that it? I'm trying my best to work out what exactly you're trying to say, you make references to things like sophistry, biotechnology and higher purposes but you don't explain why these things are relevant, or at least not sufficiently for me to be entirely clear about what you are saying.