She sighed elaborately and peered up at me. "So life is just a game." Her smile was tentative, brittle.

I considered the matter no longer than a moment. "Some people make it that way. It doesn't have to be."

My words had opened some lock, unburdened some weight. She squared her shoulders and leveled her gaze. "It doesn't have to be," she repeated. "It doesn't have to be."

The cold was bitter. White flakes fell gently, not enough to blanket the countryside except in the most symbolic of senses. Amid the falling snow harsh voices shouted out into the air, guns discharged, and cannon thundered.

They came, in twos and threes, black-suited, and stark white, the Princess stepped out from among them. She had gone without her parasol and bonnet: white she stood, hair uncovered to the snow. The people would understand. Alone she stood, a single, blinding white candle in an army of shadows.

The people came, and gathered. There were words, and at a certain time, the heavy black covering over a slab of stone was thrown back. The people were silent, and appreciated it. Then they left, trickling away.

The Princess stood sleeveless in the snow until the last of them had gone, and simply faded out.

Then there was only the stone.

Reprinted from August 2008. All rights reserved.

People were receiving and not grateful

People were hated and not hateful

I was talking to an old friend whose wounds had never healed

He counseled me to wait, to have the patience of steel

But we talked about the waters, and we talked about the rope

and he toasted me thus: To everlasting Hope.

You must accept risk to gain reward.

Today I kiraboshi'd at someone over the Internet.

"I don't care where you stand on the political spectrum, because my way is absolutely the right way and everyone who voices disagreement is automatically immoral and subhuman!"

Yeah, lot o'that going around.

avenuemuse:

“I like people to be unhappy because I like them to have souls.”
— Virginia Woolf, Selected Letters

Yeah, but this is terrifying. Suffering does not ennoble us. We may be better because we learn things from it, but it is the act of learning and not the act of being miserable that makes us greater.

There is this tradition that Occultists have of the Malakh'habbalah - supernatural beings that punish people and drive them to greater torment, in the hopes that they will be stronger and better. They break a lot of people in the process, but in their minds, those people were weak and wouldn't have really been good in the long haul anyway. The related argument, long-running, is over whether someone who is deliberately cruel in the name of a good cause is really a good being.

And ultimately, no matter what one feels about using the name of God or the name of a righteous cause to justify their actions, it seems to me that unnecessary suffering is just bad. Death is not the worst of evils; everyone dies eventually. But to suffer for no reason - that truly seems bad. To invent reasons to avoid that conclusion, to justify empty suffering, seems equally bad. For someone to say, these people count more as people, they are more real, because they have suffered - that is the worst kind of distinction one can draw. It tells us that we should, in our heart of hearts, wish suffering upon others.

Do people not count unless they have suffered and can prove it to you?

Distance is really able to show you different things. It's the same in a debate, or a chess match, or a war . . . and I guess love is war.

Culture is like a suit jacket. It restrains you, it protects you slightly, and most importantly, it greatly affects how other people view you.

People say 'the suit makes the man,' but please remember that in the end you are a man, not a suit.

Obviously a troll post, but it actually has a valid point for some:

"Why do Christian women choose to be mistresses rather than to allow polygamy?"

Now, importantly:

1. Not all Western women are Christian, and not all Christian women are Western.

2. Laws about polyamory and marriage were overwhelmingly passed by men, not women.

3. In many African countries that are predominantly Christian, polygamy is legal, and practiced by Christians. Monogamy is not a Christian thing; it's a Western thing.

4. "Love," as we understand it in its modern form of romantic partnership, is a conceit that started circa 1500. Prior to that (and even somewhat after) the understanding was generally that marriages were arranged for long-term dynastic goals, not for sexual or romantic fulfillment.

All that said, the poster has a valid point: for those women specifically looking to be protected and kept by a man, obviously, some sort of second wife status guarantees more than being a mistress.

Of course, none of this addresses that increasingly it is the women who do not want to be tied down, and do not require any compensation from the man. I recall the reactions when a Ph.D student in the lab next door was dating a married man: "I know he has a ring, but I don't care about that," she said to a group of fellow students. "I just want to have some fun." Some were scandalized, but others admired her "strength" and ability to not give a damn about conventional morality. She wasn't getting any money out of it (unless you count free dinners); she was getting sex and short-term companionship. That was all she was after. The utter ruin of the future of the marriage was categorically not her concern. She wasn't there to cherish the guy and share his dreams; she was there to use him as a sex toy. He was either too dumb or too flattered by her attentions to see it. The real loser is, presumably, the wife of the cheating man, if she actually needed to depend on him for food/shelter/protection.

So really, what turning mistresses into second wives would protect is first wives who don't have the economic backing to be independent agents. Also, I suppose it would protect some men from their own stupidity, to a degree: now there's no illusion that they're "getting away" with something; they've just tacked on a very expensive habit that is formalized in law. Social theorists make noises about "beta" men being protected by the institution of marriage, but accepting this outlook as valid for the sake of argument, I suppose the ritualization and institutionalization of "second wives" protects "beta" women as well.