How the Beings Lost Their Awareness
A Legend of Armengar
Note from Cosaint:
If the Sorrow of MacLaigheann is a rare tale, then this one is practically extinct, for I have never heard anyone else tell it but myself and the man who taught it to me. However, it is relevant if only for how it was used of late.
Upon the island of Amnor, the fae have stirred and come forth from the land once more. Young and curious, they are having trouble coming to terms with life in a tumultuous world. Consider that they have only emerged in the past year, and you will see how much of their life has been lived in war. When one of these native Amnorians came to me to learn of morality (on the advice of a certain mage) I told this tale to her - and so it gains a new significance as a teaching tool.
This is a creation myth, but concerns itself far more with how beings come to be moral. The answer it gives is not a cheerful one, but one to inspire thought - evil comes of assuming that you can only ever do good.
My teacher used to tell me this tale when I was still a child. At the time, I thought it was overly simplistic; a fairy tale if you will. But like many things there are different levels of truth to be uncovered as we grow in experience. Maybe it will help you to understand my opinions to some extent.
At the beginning of the world, before there were ancestors or humans, there were only the Makers. The Makers laboured long and hard to make the world match a beautiful image in their mind, for it was given to them that they should create a paradise, wherein all might live in happiness.
To live upon this world, they created the Beings, who would flourish and populate their paradise. And yet, when it came time to place the beings on the world, the Makers found themselves perplexed. They wished that all should live in happiness on the world, and yet they did not know how to make sure that the Beings would be happy. What if some were more happy than others? What if some could not find happiness, because they were not as strong as the other seekers of joy? For long days, the Makers considered this problem until eventually they conceived an answer. Within each of the Beings, they would create the Awareness. By means of the Awareness, each Being would know how their actions affected the other Beings. If their actions made other Beings happy, then they too would be happy. If their actions made other Beings sad, then they would feel the weight of this sorrow.
Happy with this solution, the Makers placed their Beings upon the world. At first everything worked perfectly. The Beings quickly learnt what made people happy and what made them sad, and together they lived their lives in peace. The Makers were well pleased with what they had wrought, and so they deigned to leave their world as it was while they worked on new wonders, but would check in on their Beings every so often.
Nobody knows how long the Makers worked on other creations and left their world to its own devices. In that time, they created shooting stars which would trail their light across the heavans. They crafted a million sunsets; each different from the others and each beautiful in its own way. And they conceived a notion that the sun might some day appear to be eaten from the sky, only to reappear in all its glory. Content that they had sufficient new wonders for their world, they checked once more upon their beings. But where they had expected to find further joy and happiness, the Makers were distressed to find war and pain. Being fought Being, and the pain could be felt across the world as intentionally inflicted sorrow tore across the Awareness.
Bewildered, the Makers pledged then to discover what had gone wrong, and set about their investigations. Looking back through time (for the powers of the Makers were beyond measure), they sought the cause of the pain which had been visited upon their world. Again they witnessed the Beginning, when they created the world and populated it with their Beings. They felt the Awareness spread between all, and were confused. How could pain be visited upon another when the Awareness was intact. Curious, they span time forward and watched.
As their Beings flourished, they spread out across the world, and the Makers were proud for this was how they intended from the Beginning. And yet they were also surprised, for as the Beings flourished, so they developed something unknown to the Makers - they developed desires. The Beings dreamed of things which were not yet theirs and wished to have them. The Awareness stretched and strained under this new burden, for was someone whose Desire had not been met sad? Or were they happy to dream? And if they were sad, who had caused this sadness?
Fascinated, the Makers watched as their Beings spread even further across the world. As they grew in population, so too they grew in complexity. No longer did the Beings merely interact in random ways, but they developed societies. The links which bound Beings together became more involved. Before a Being's action affected only themselves and those nearby. Now though a Being's action might affect those he had never met, so many links were there. With horror then the Makers percieved what had gone wrong.
They watched as Beings struggled under the burden of the Awareness, for they could feel the sorrow that resulted from actions which they thought were good. When they gathered food for their village, those from the next village had to work harder for now there was less food. When they helped one Being gain what they Desired, they left another cursing the ill luck which had given their Desire to another. Eventually for some the complex combinations of joy and pain which they felt through the Awareness became too much and their minds broke. They fled from what they "knew" and sought to deny it. They turned from the "truth" that was granted them, and within them the Awareness became a twisted thing. No longer could they feel their own joy. No longer was happiness a beautiful thing for them. Now it was somthing which was denied to them, but which others had. Now pain was with them always, and they wished that it would be so for others. Worse, they fled from their own knowledge so much that pain became as joy and joy as pain. Through the Awareness, they could feel how to visit this pain on others...and did so.
Shame struck hard at the Makers then, for where they had tried to create something good, their Awareness had also created Evil.
Then the Makers also fell to arguing amongst themselves. Some wished to destroy the world they had created and start again from scratch. This time, they reasoned, they would not make the same mistakes, and they could wipe the shame of their error from creation. Others felt that this would be a greater shame, for they would have destroyed several lives who had never asked to be created in the first place. All agreed though that the Awareness must end.
So the Makers drew together their power and from the patterns of each Being they drew away the Awareness. Each Being which had previously been linked to every other being suddenly found themselves very alone. And as it so very often is when something is lost, the Beings wanted the Awareness back though it had caused them so much pain.
Over time it became apparent that the Awareness was not completely gone. When Beings spent enough time together, and came to have affection for each other, then a weak form of the Awareness could be formed. For the Beings found that the joy of those they loved was joy to them, and the pain of those they loved stung them as clearly as if a blow had been delivered to themselves. And from that day forth, that is how we have lived - uncertain as to whether our actions hurt those far away, but trying to determine what is best by how it affects those we love.
Think on it thusly then - there are those who you are close to, and you do not wish to see sad. At it's most basic, we can try to be good people by not making those people sad. How far we attempt to expand from that though is always a quandry. We have no Awareness, and we cannot be certain that what we do is right. To not try however, to turn our backs on even an attempt to know, that opens the way for great evil.
In general, few set out to be evil. They just fail to conceive that what they do may not necessarily be right. A frightening thought, no?
All Works are © Original Author
(OC Author - Fergal O'Brien)