Hollow: Humanity in Guise
Humanity. Yet another linguistic unit, another hollow definition, which holds no import in the grander scheme of things. It is like so many other conceptions the supercilious, idle minds of we animals produce; it is a providence not merely limited to mankind and its derivatives. The emotional command we proudly exhibit, which we think ours and ours alone, is nothing more than electrical impulses actively and reactively responding to variable environmental and personal stimulations.
Other creatures are not incapable of expressing such emotion, such reaction. It is true that we humanoids - of the human, elfin, lamia, or other similar mammalian orders and families - have a pseudo "enlightened" perception of such emotions; in that we are able to contemplate their meanings to a greater ambit. This expansion of emotion is not, however, a greater comprehension; rather this thought is naught more than idle speculation spawned by otiose minds.
I have known animals, even plants, which have been known to evince - in no uncertain quantity or quality – more "humanity" than many humans. Transitively I have known many a human to display a distinct lack of empathy; humans colder than ice and harder than bedrock.
The methods with which these creatures connote said feeling, particularly amongst simpler life forms, is often foreign and inconceivable to the complex and boastful primate mentality, though no less real or important. The Way has opened my eyes and soul to this prospect; one which I had a vague understanding of prior, at least. When one walks the path of universal, primitive emotion and conveyance, he attains a more substantive appreciation for life in all its forms.
This is easily the shortest chapter in the book. Not so much a story in and of itself, this is one of a couple chapters in MGP that more or less “set up” the following stories. It’s just a quick little highlight of Zien’s reflections on certain subjects, similar to the section towards the end of “The Miss: Executioner’s Bane” where he just goes off on a tangent about what he thinks about mercy killings. I actually wrote this and planned to put it into a chapter that I ended up cutting out of the first volume. One of these days I’d like to revisit that story, about a wyrm and the tree it nourishes off of, but sadly you will not see it in this iteration of MGP.
Even though it was a section I planned to put in that chapter, I still felt like it was an impactful passage and integral to Zien’s “nature boy” mentality, so I decided to cut it out and make a short chapter about it. It might seem a little out of place, and that’s why…still, I liked it.