Where Conviction and Insecurity Collide: Religious Overtones (Part 5)
A person’s epistemology—how they define truth—dictates what they find decent vs. morally reprehensible. For instance, if someone believes that truth is defined by their own personal history (say, a record of wrongs committed against them), then their morality constitutes a sliding scale stretching from injustice to the justifiable. In other words, that which is not allowed to happen to them, but might be allowed to happen to someone else. Whereas that same scale doesn’t compute for someone who lower on the pyramid believes that their gods will punish acts of retribution. Conversely, should a person make offerings to a goddess who is heralded for seeking the revenge of her cosmic lover, then all’s fair in love and war.
People are not numbers, Luscia tells Hachiro at the open of HOBL.
But people sure do take the shape of their ideas.
Real Trauma and Healing in the Minds of the Make-Believe
To survive, we all stitch on a mask and eventually call it skin.
And that is why trauma is so violent. Removing our mask is a terrifying, bloody mess.
The good news, is that sorrow and joy do go hand in hand. As does mercy and justice. Because it’s in those ravines where the best stories—stories like our own—unfold. Luscia and Zaethan’s interdependent sagas are not one in a million, they’re ones just like a million others.
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