Lexico Musings was a long name so I changed the whole newsletter name to ‘Oh, The Joy Of Being Human!’. Its URL has been also been changed to Dang It I Am A Human (I have always been very vocal about how I love being a human, you know?).
My reasoning behind this whole series is the idea that humans are rationale creatures, thinking is our superpower.
By thinking higher, broader and deeper, we can lead meaningful, fulfilling lives where everyone can be happy together.
But most of us resist thinking - ‘aise hee hota hai’ (it is how it is) has become a catchphrase to justify crimes in the world.
But if we kill and steal and rape like wild animals do, without thinking about consequences, what is the point of us being humans?
And the funniest thing is that people living this lifestyle are also the most miserable people I know.
People I wish they had better circumstances, but then they are actively ruining whatever good they get through ignorance.
Well, I can’t act high and mighty because I also hurt the guy who loves me the most through my ignorance, which is why I dedicate myself to reopening my wounds and healing them by thinking my life through.
It hurts and it stings, but matching his loyalty in love with my own loyalty to him and his lessons makes my life more meaningful than it ever has been.
And through my words, dear readers, I open up my inner world to you for your speculation in the hopes that it can help you think and love.
It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with me, as long as I help you be a version of you that you want to be without anyone being hurt, intentionally or unintentionally.
The story of this story
I cried for like 95% of the 2 hours 35 minutes I watched Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba The Movie: Infinity Castle.
The only time I stopped crying was in interval, when I had to catch my breath.
And then the fight with Akaza restarted and I went back to crying.
The story of Akaza reopened some closed chapters of my heart. I am here today to unpack it with you.
I won’t tell you his exact backstory, but explore its theme. I am a writer-prankster, but not an evil one.
The story of Akaza is the story of a guy fighting to protect everything he has, and walking on the classic ‘I will be strong no matter the cost’ after losing everything he was trying to protect.
I have lived a very similar life, just the difference is that after losing something I had been trying to protect, I found something new to protect. By luck, mostly.
The 2 types of people
There are only 2 kinds of people in the world -
Those who protect
Those who destroy
The society that we live in is an intermix of these 2 kinds of people.
Technically even those who try to destroy are still protecting, they are protecting themselves from finding another thing to protect that might get destroyed and destroy them with itself.
It’s a sad world.
But good and evil, protection and destruction, selfishness and selflessness isn’t as simple as we make it to be.
People can be selfish to the world to protect the one person they dearly love.
The good thing is people can also be selfish to themselves to protect everyone while destroying themselves.
But in this world, where evil abounds and goodness is rare, being selfless to all is a crime you commit against yourself.
Fortunately though, there are ways to be kind and compassionate without letting others ruin you for it.
At the peak time of my suffering, no one whom I had helped helped me back. Everyone had just disappeared, because I was ‘too much’ for them.
A thought struck me back then, a thought that has stuck with me since then -
What if the idea of a selfless hero is a selfish societal concept to manipulate naive people into being their protectors, even if they have to sacrifice everything they have?
What if society gave rise to heroes and villains to justify being weak, as being good?
Do heroes and villains really exist?
In a battle between a hero and a villain, both lose.
How many heroes has the society helped when they need help?
Oh wait, good heroes don’t reveal their identity to anyone. Then how can society help them?
But if they could help the hero,
Would they sacrifice everything like the hero has, to help them?
Or would they hero be left to defend everything, this time everything they have, alone?
Why does goodness have to pay a price like evil has to? What is the point of being good then?
Is there really any meaning to being good, or being a hero or a villain is the 2 sides of the same coin, with flipped narrative?
Let’s now talk about the story of the moon elves and the sun elves, who live in neighbouring villages in the land of magic - Fantasia (very original name, I know).
The sun elves, the moon elves, and the oriental jug
The sun elves worship the sun everyday with a certain ritual, in the forest separating their village from those of the other elves.
The moon elves worship the moon (duh!) and perform a similar ritual at night in the same forest.
The sun elves offer water mugs to the sun. The moon elves offer milk jugs.
One night, after their ritual, a moon elf did not notice a valuable oriental milk jug covered by a thicket of bush. The moon elves searched everywhere but did not find it.
The next morning, when the sun elves came to pray, they found the sparkling milk jug near the bushes. They took the jug to the moon elf village, annoyed that the ritual would be delayed. But they could not start their ritual till the land was ‘fresh’ and devoid of signs of worshipping any other God (they didn’t want to incur the wrath of sun god).
The moon elves, who were exhausted from having searched all night but had to leave early to make space for the sun elves, were uneasy when the sun elves trooped in to deposit that jug. It didn’t help that the haughty sun elves seemed like they were doing a favour.
As they were leaving, they heard a voice remark, “How do we know they didn’t steal it and are returning to ease their conscience?”
“As if we sun elves need to steal from these moon elves,” the sun elf elder retorted. And that was how the war of the Moon elves against the Sun elves started.
The war lasted 122 years, till a sun elf famous for sword fighting joined in. At the same time, a moon elf famous for rapier fighting joined from the moon elf side.
They both killed a great number of soldiers from the opposite camp. Both were strong and seen as the heroes of their villages.
One day, at noon, a great number of moon elves were injured but the sun elves kept going strong (their powers were enhanced at day time), the moon elf hero decided to cover the retreat of his comrades and kept fighting. He killed a great number of sun elves, till the sun elf hero was called.
The sun elf hero helped his other comrades retreat and the two heroes fought each other to near-death. As they lay there, breathing in their last breaths and waiting for reinforcements, they realised they weren’t that different from each other.
Both the villages dare not send anyone for the fear that more of their soldiers would be killed in the battle of these war giants. All scouts active in the war had already been deployed to monitor the enemy village, and no one had the courage to check the battlefield without any sort of protection.
The heroes eventually realised no help was incoming, and anyhow they got up, supported each other and nursed each other back to health in a nearby cave.
The sun elf hero did the chores in the daytime when he was more powerful, the moon elf hero took that role during nighttime.
When they both had healed themselves and regained their strength, they thanked each other like the brothers they had become and decided that the silly feud had to end, they are all elves in the end.
They went to their respective village and explained their thoughts to the counsel of village elders.
“How dare you insult the sacrifice of our ancestors?”
“The moon elves killed so many of our men, and you are saying we shouldn’t punish them for it?”
The elders of both the villages branded their respective heroes as heretics who had been ‘brainwashed by the villain of that hero’.
They sentenced them to death for treachery.
The heroes were torn between loyalty to their village and faithfulness to their dealings with the ‘evil side’. The villagers, who had blind faith in the elders, gossiped about how evil the other side was.
The two heroes ran away from their villages and met in the same cave.
Why didn’t anyone believe in them like they did earlier?
Unbeknownst to them, soldiers from both villages were already stationed there and waiting for them.
They jumped them when they were the most vulnerable and killed them both.
This was the story of the two traitors who died, together.
Now, here are 2 questions for you to ponder over:
Which side is good and which is evil?
and
Are these 2 elves heroes or traitors?
That’s it for now
Comment on this post with your answer to the above 2 questions.
And thank you for reading me again~
I can never express how grateful I am to have people read what I write. I literally want to keep quitting writing when I hit sad times, but the thought of readers like you reading and even waiting for my next writing piece keeps me going.
I will continue this topic in the next issue and share my thoughts on this whole thing.
Also, I know some of you are eagerly waiting for the 2nd part of The Layers of Decoding Your Life Purpose, but sadly I will need some time for it. Everything I wrote in that issue was my experience, and if I had to put myself in the circle, I am on Level 4, trying to find out what I actually want to do.
Although I do understand some of my body needs as well (Level 5) - I can, for the most cases, resolve my physical problems by myself by working on my stress, but I still don’t know enough about this whole thing to explain it in writing.
Thank you for waiting so patiently while I work on it, folks. I am a hardcore believer in writer’s integrity, and prefer to not write or giving disclaimers over making ‘regular’ content and I love you guys for respecting that.
Anyways, ciao! I will see you in the next one.
P.S.: Are you on Instagram?
I am going to start posting in earnest, I made a carousel to post today evening which will go something like this -
Do follow me on Instagram to keep up with my shenanigans!
(I also put up tonnes of stories of fun posts I come across online with my own takes)
You can also follow me on X (Twitter).
P.S.S.:
Someone posted this story:
And I am still laughing at the reply I gave her to this one:
Originally published on Substack. View Discussion on Substack →
