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So. That one about the Anakim is going over a treat. So. How about the Eshmaki?
The Eshmaki, Nightmares of Darkness
You remember the first words of reassurance you ever had, right? It always has something to do with the nightlight, right? It always had something to do with the darkness beyond the edge of that light, right? Those immortal words-you aren’t really afraid of the dark, you’re afraid of the unknown, you’re afraid of what might be in the dark. We all worry something’s in the place beyond sight, I guess.
Well, that’s only partly true. We don’t need there to be nothing in the darkness because there are cuddly bears out to hug us in it. No, our first fear is that there are things out in the dark that will hurt us, bear traps and bears, both quick to snap their jaws on us-but further than that, we’re so deeply scared we couldn’t handle either one, that we couldn’t slip away from those jaws, that we couldn’t break those jaws.
What’s more than that, though, is as soon as we recognize that some of those bears who are cuddly and huggable, we begin to recognize that we kind of suck at recognizing the difference between those two. It’s hard to see things in the dark, to know the difference between huggable and devouring, between a dish and a trap. It compounds the problem further, because we sense something in the dark and we don’t know whether to be friendly or to be frightful, and that just increases the fright.
And it continues to get worse. We begin to recognize the darkness in people’s hearts, in the darkness of their homes, their streets, their hours-there is darkness all around, and we just can’t fucking see things for how they are and we don’t know what to do about it.
We need there to be nothing in the dark because we can’t trust ourselves to know what is what until it’s too late, or that we’ll know the correct way to deal with it when it comes. We can’t handle the overpopulated darkness as it is.
And that’s all right.
It’s okay to be afraid of there being something in the dark we can’t properly get and don’t know how to deal with, because there probably is. The thing about the darkness being Schrodinger’s box is that each option is as likely, and the more you deal with things in the dark, the more chance of something being there increases. Instead of denying that there’s anything in the darkness, it’s better to just admit to yourself that everything is in the darkness, and accept that you’ll have to deal with it. It’s terrifying, but at least you’re dealing with the full spectrum. If you end up being wrong, you’re wrong. And if you’re right?
Well, if you’re right, it’s time for the next spectrum of truth-you just can’t always know whether something/one means well or ill. Like things in the dark, it’s not a fixed subject either-someone can mean all the best for you and still end up stabbing you in the back, by accident or by intent, or someone can wish to do you harm and still end up helping you out. They can see you about as well as you can see them. You pay attention, learn as much as you can in the dim and the dark as you can, and learn what signs mean what, and learn how much is too much and how much is too little, and which deserves what. Truth is, you just kind of have to deal with things as they come, and be ready to flow with how things go. All you can do is greet each thing in kind.
So you learn how to be kind and proper to those who are kind and proper with you, and you learn how to be swift and merciless with those who would be such to you. You learn how to switch between your silk glove and iron gauntlet depending on what is called for, and to do it on the fly. You learn how to treat every shape as friend and enemy on the first go, and how to cement interactions into relationships. You learn to introduce yourself before they introduce themselves to you, because being the first thing you meet in the dark always gives you the upper hand-you get to reveal what of yourself you want them to handle before they get to decide how the game should play. You discover that you can be anything you want to be-need to be-to handle things, and that people learn to handle you with respect and care because of that possibility. And they learn to keep that care about them for almost anyone and anything they meet, because it might always be you in the dark, and being cruel to you can be a bad idea. You can’t begrudge them for learning how to stay safe, of course, how to handle anything that comes their way, in case it’s not you, and those who are courteous of you can always learn from you on how to stay safe with others, and how to see as many signs as possible in as little possible.
You find that just as many things in the dark are inclined to be friends as they are enemies, many facing the same insecurities and questions as you do. They often need someone to be there with them, because someone watching your back at least means you know one of the things in the dark. It makes you both feel safe. Even those who are your enemies can be guided around to being your friends if you can switch their point of...well, not view, but their limited perception. Honestly, it becomes easier that there are things in the dark, as you go on-you don’t always know what it is, but at least you’re never alone, and you’ve got the skills to play it both ways.
You eventually learn that it doesn’t matter what’s in the dark, because you’re capable enough to handle anything that comes your way, with a warm hug in your right and bloody claws in your left. Sure, you can be scared about not knowing what’s there and how to handle it-but you’re quick and adaptable enough to be anything you need to be in the dark, and for whatever it’s worth, you at least know you are never, truly alone-anything could be in the dark with you, right now.
The Forsworn of Darkness, The Bright
But you remember your first assurance, right? The truest one out there? If you’re worried something is out in the dark, why not, I dunno. Turn on a light and see what’s there? Instead of all that hullabaloo about learning to trust yourself and your ability to handle whatever, why not just flip the switch, see what’s actually there, and deal with it as it is?
It’s a lack of imagination and self-confidence that sit at the heart of the Bright. Some of us certainly learn to sleep in light, and may even prefer it, but most of us eventually learn to go to sleep in the dark, confident that nothing was going to hurt us. The Bright? No so much. It could be anything? No, it has to be something, and a something has it’s limits, it’s definitions, it’s lengths and widths and heights and weaknesses. For the Bright, it’s less about what they can do, be, and become, and more about what other things can’t do, can’t be, can’t change into. It can’t be over there and then suddenly over here, because in the light it has to traverse space, it just can’t be anywhere since it’s really one and the same with the dark. Everything can be defined, placed, categorized.It can simply be known.
The Eshmaki, of course, tend to arrive at the same place through their long experience of just running into things in the dark, often meeting similar things over and over again, but where those encounters encourage quicking thinking, adaptation, and both viciousness and kindness in the Eshmaki, the Heroes of Light never learn to get in touch with those internal strengths. Instead, it becomes about dealing with everyone else’s facts, and in particular finding out their weaknesses that can be used against them. Not only does this keep them from really exploring their own intuition and strengths, it also sets every interaction with others as hostile, because the first priority for them is at least learning where the soft spots in their skin are. No one is trusted without an exact knowledge of how to put them down, or a clear understanding of how they can’t hurt them to begin with. That’s the other problem with the Bright-they dislike how things can change and adapt, how they can grow. They need things to be as they are, to know exactly what they’re like, so they can handle it. They need to see things clearly, and therefore limit what a thing could be in favor of what it is. If something plays against the script, it deeply throws them off their game, and they will hammer away at a thing to get it to play right in their books, or to spread it out, cross-section it, and create a new category to fit them in.
At the heart of it all though, the problem of the Bright is that they mistake isolation for safety. It’s one thing to be withdrawn and keep to yourself because you feel secure that way, but the Enlightened, in their hearts, tend to just accept that anything that comes to you in the dark has ill-intent, and everything and everyone approaches in a measure of shadow at some point. You can’t be hurt if you just trust that everyone is out to harm you, and you can’t be hurt if you never let anyone sneak up on you like that. Rather than accept that anyone could be just as much a friend as an enemy and trust themselves to handle it, the Bright shine their lights, exact judgment, and make them play to their standards-either behave as their idea of a friend, or be an enemy. Because of this dichotomy, the Bright almost never get to crash into their fears, because anyone who wants to be their friend on their own terms gets labelled an enemy and shoved away, and those who play at being their friend until the last moment walk away with the Bright’s ideas being confirmed. It takes a long time of loneliness before the Enlightened may come into conflict with the fact that their own insecurities are the cause of it, and maybe, just maybe, they need to take something in the dark on their own terms rather than defining it by theirs.
The Eshmaki, Nightmares of Darkness
You remember the first words of reassurance you ever had, right? It always has something to do with the nightlight, right? It always had something to do with the darkness beyond the edge of that light, right? Those immortal words-you aren’t really afraid of the dark, you’re afraid of the unknown, you’re afraid of what might be in the dark. We all worry something’s in the place beyond sight, I guess.
Well, that’s only partly true. We don’t need there to be nothing in the darkness because there are cuddly bears out to hug us in it. No, our first fear is that there are things out in the dark that will hurt us, bear traps and bears, both quick to snap their jaws on us-but further than that, we’re so deeply scared we couldn’t handle either one, that we couldn’t slip away from those jaws, that we couldn’t break those jaws.
What’s more than that, though, is as soon as we recognize that some of those bears who are cuddly and huggable, we begin to recognize that we kind of suck at recognizing the difference between those two. It’s hard to see things in the dark, to know the difference between huggable and devouring, between a dish and a trap. It compounds the problem further, because we sense something in the dark and we don’t know whether to be friendly or to be frightful, and that just increases the fright.
And it continues to get worse. We begin to recognize the darkness in people’s hearts, in the darkness of their homes, their streets, their hours-there is darkness all around, and we just can’t fucking see things for how they are and we don’t know what to do about it.
We need there to be nothing in the dark because we can’t trust ourselves to know what is what until it’s too late, or that we’ll know the correct way to deal with it when it comes. We can’t handle the overpopulated darkness as it is.
And that’s all right.
It’s okay to be afraid of there being something in the dark we can’t properly get and don’t know how to deal with, because there probably is. The thing about the darkness being Schrodinger’s box is that each option is as likely, and the more you deal with things in the dark, the more chance of something being there increases. Instead of denying that there’s anything in the darkness, it’s better to just admit to yourself that everything is in the darkness, and accept that you’ll have to deal with it. It’s terrifying, but at least you’re dealing with the full spectrum. If you end up being wrong, you’re wrong. And if you’re right?
Well, if you’re right, it’s time for the next spectrum of truth-you just can’t always know whether something/one means well or ill. Like things in the dark, it’s not a fixed subject either-someone can mean all the best for you and still end up stabbing you in the back, by accident or by intent, or someone can wish to do you harm and still end up helping you out. They can see you about as well as you can see them. You pay attention, learn as much as you can in the dim and the dark as you can, and learn what signs mean what, and learn how much is too much and how much is too little, and which deserves what. Truth is, you just kind of have to deal with things as they come, and be ready to flow with how things go. All you can do is greet each thing in kind.
So you learn how to be kind and proper to those who are kind and proper with you, and you learn how to be swift and merciless with those who would be such to you. You learn how to switch between your silk glove and iron gauntlet depending on what is called for, and to do it on the fly. You learn how to treat every shape as friend and enemy on the first go, and how to cement interactions into relationships. You learn to introduce yourself before they introduce themselves to you, because being the first thing you meet in the dark always gives you the upper hand-you get to reveal what of yourself you want them to handle before they get to decide how the game should play. You discover that you can be anything you want to be-need to be-to handle things, and that people learn to handle you with respect and care because of that possibility. And they learn to keep that care about them for almost anyone and anything they meet, because it might always be you in the dark, and being cruel to you can be a bad idea. You can’t begrudge them for learning how to stay safe, of course, how to handle anything that comes their way, in case it’s not you, and those who are courteous of you can always learn from you on how to stay safe with others, and how to see as many signs as possible in as little possible.
You find that just as many things in the dark are inclined to be friends as they are enemies, many facing the same insecurities and questions as you do. They often need someone to be there with them, because someone watching your back at least means you know one of the things in the dark. It makes you both feel safe. Even those who are your enemies can be guided around to being your friends if you can switch their point of...well, not view, but their limited perception. Honestly, it becomes easier that there are things in the dark, as you go on-you don’t always know what it is, but at least you’re never alone, and you’ve got the skills to play it both ways.
You eventually learn that it doesn’t matter what’s in the dark, because you’re capable enough to handle anything that comes your way, with a warm hug in your right and bloody claws in your left. Sure, you can be scared about not knowing what’s there and how to handle it-but you’re quick and adaptable enough to be anything you need to be in the dark, and for whatever it’s worth, you at least know you are never, truly alone-anything could be in the dark with you, right now.
The Forsworn of Darkness, The Bright
But you remember your first assurance, right? The truest one out there? If you’re worried something is out in the dark, why not, I dunno. Turn on a light and see what’s there? Instead of all that hullabaloo about learning to trust yourself and your ability to handle whatever, why not just flip the switch, see what’s actually there, and deal with it as it is?
It’s a lack of imagination and self-confidence that sit at the heart of the Bright. Some of us certainly learn to sleep in light, and may even prefer it, but most of us eventually learn to go to sleep in the dark, confident that nothing was going to hurt us. The Bright? No so much. It could be anything? No, it has to be something, and a something has it’s limits, it’s definitions, it’s lengths and widths and heights and weaknesses. For the Bright, it’s less about what they can do, be, and become, and more about what other things can’t do, can’t be, can’t change into. It can’t be over there and then suddenly over here, because in the light it has to traverse space, it just can’t be anywhere since it’s really one and the same with the dark. Everything can be defined, placed, categorized.It can simply be known.
The Eshmaki, of course, tend to arrive at the same place through their long experience of just running into things in the dark, often meeting similar things over and over again, but where those encounters encourage quicking thinking, adaptation, and both viciousness and kindness in the Eshmaki, the Heroes of Light never learn to get in touch with those internal strengths. Instead, it becomes about dealing with everyone else’s facts, and in particular finding out their weaknesses that can be used against them. Not only does this keep them from really exploring their own intuition and strengths, it also sets every interaction with others as hostile, because the first priority for them is at least learning where the soft spots in their skin are. No one is trusted without an exact knowledge of how to put them down, or a clear understanding of how they can’t hurt them to begin with. That’s the other problem with the Bright-they dislike how things can change and adapt, how they can grow. They need things to be as they are, to know exactly what they’re like, so they can handle it. They need to see things clearly, and therefore limit what a thing could be in favor of what it is. If something plays against the script, it deeply throws them off their game, and they will hammer away at a thing to get it to play right in their books, or to spread it out, cross-section it, and create a new category to fit them in.
At the heart of it all though, the problem of the Bright is that they mistake isolation for safety. It’s one thing to be withdrawn and keep to yourself because you feel secure that way, but the Enlightened, in their hearts, tend to just accept that anything that comes to you in the dark has ill-intent, and everything and everyone approaches in a measure of shadow at some point. You can’t be hurt if you just trust that everyone is out to harm you, and you can’t be hurt if you never let anyone sneak up on you like that. Rather than accept that anyone could be just as much a friend as an enemy and trust themselves to handle it, the Bright shine their lights, exact judgment, and make them play to their standards-either behave as their idea of a friend, or be an enemy. Because of this dichotomy, the Bright almost never get to crash into their fears, because anyone who wants to be their friend on their own terms gets labelled an enemy and shoved away, and those who play at being their friend until the last moment walk away with the Bright’s ideas being confirmed. It takes a long time of loneliness before the Enlightened may come into conflict with the fact that their own insecurities are the cause of it, and maybe, just maybe, they need to take something in the dark on their own terms rather than defining it by theirs.
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