At least an animal

[lhexa]

Part of a conversation with Cube about identity and insanity.

...I don't have a character, much less one for each species. So I describe the identification as a set of affiliations, implying some degree of loyalty to humanity's present understanding of the two species. That understanding includes the literature tied to the animals (though tied very loosely, in the case of the fisher).

So less a pure furry and more one interested in furry (historical and present) as a lens for understanding humanity?

Neither. Not the former because if a pure furry exists, I don't know what it is. Not the latter, because understanding humanity is a side concern. I'm a furry in order to ensure that I'm at least an animal. I mean to imply that the development of humanity has made the majority of its members something less. Purposes, appearances, activities, perspectives are all less than animal (they go into, they compose what is animal), but human beings are reduced to being, in a vital sense -- that is, reduced to embodying or living -- such things as purposes, appearances, activities, perspectives...

At present humanity is something less than animal. Once I can figure out, to my satisfaction (or rather completion) how I am an animal, maybe then I can try to envision humanity as a higher form of life.

But to get back to the previous point, my understanding of what is fox-like or fisher-like will be human understandings thereof, my capacity for understanding them being a human one. Even if, as I argue (and once argued for draconity), what is fox-like and what is fisher-like cannot be reduced to a subset of what is human.

...Disconnected from a purposeful life by the structures humankind has built for itself. Tricky to undo...

A later part of the conversation.

...I think that more insight in this problem [of boundless greed] can be found in the idea of the fox. There's the insight that hit me with so much force when I first read the Ysengrimus. Reynard isn't any less greedy than Ysengrimus, but his is, in short, a different (and better) form that greed can take. He makes use of cleverness rather than strength, and his ability is what can redirect the raw drive of an Ysengrimus. Power, or the need for power, can't be repressed (that only replaces power with power), nor can it be reasoned with, but it can be outwitted.

All of these magical or divine creatures humanity has described provide ways of coming to terms with what is limitless in a person, whether it be power, suffering, love, patience, or any of the other things that have been expressed at various points in history... any one of which has the capacity to completely reshape human society. The vulpine answer is, in short, that divinity is cleverness. The application of this idea, in my case, is that whatever anger, pettiness, insecurity, delusion, vanity, hopelessness, and resignation might exist in me (and there's much at times), they can all be outwitted. (Again, for emphasis... not controlled, and not reasoned with, but outwitted.)

The downside to this approach is that, like Reynard, I have no final victories over my failings... hunger will never be more than a day away, and Ysengrimus or his kin (that is, what they represent) will always reappear to test my cleverness again. The fox is not the form of one who most values rest, comfort, or endings. But it works.

I hope there's something in there you can use.

Comments

[rax.livejournal.com]

I hope there's something in there you can use.

Yes, to put it mildly.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_dw/]

That is interesting.

I've wondered about purpose, some times, myself. We have the blessing, as it were, to choose our purpose; but that seems to have become turned into that since anything can be a purpose, nothing really holds that weight that purpose should hold.

Does that problem reside with us or with the universe? A very high standard would be that purpose is true only if it's somehow given by the universe, otherwise it's just something that we have invented and so doesn't carry the required weight. By that standard, it would seem like the universe is indifferent to what we do, and thus the problem is not us, since there's nothing we can do that will make a true difference any more than any other action. However, that standard may be too high.

Animals (and perhaps some of my creatures) simply have their purpose defined for them. Perhaps a purpose is better than none, even if it isn't "true" by any high standard. "They know why they are there", we don't. Yet, it's possible for people to create false purpose (I think), but maybe that too is because we don't already have any and so we put our standards low indeed.

I'm mostly just thinking loudly here.

-

For the later part, would there be different solutions for different animals? I think so, but I can't at the moment see what other animals would represent these other solutions. It might be possible to divert the raw desire or drive; it would not be logic, but simply a redirection whenever it occurs...

Common to such solutions would be that they require a certain indirect strength of being: not the strength of power or repression, but the strength of, when finding out that there are no final victories, to persevere - to keep outwitting (or redirecting, or what the solution may be) those forces, that the sum of the temporary victories keeps said forces from advancing.

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

I hope there's something in there you can use.

Somewhere in there, but not within my grasp quite at the moment.