more on love, man'chi, and all that jazz

currently re-reading Foreigner

i'm going to try and say this without going off on all possible tangents... wish me luck...

this is somewhat mine and somewhat me paraphrasing others here...

Bren (at least Bren, at any rate, and the other humans, supposedly) tends to automatically make a distinction between intelligence and emotions. not surprisingly so, as many people do, but one must argue that they are not really separate categories as such, and also that emotions cannot really be reduced down to "feelings"... it seems to me that Bren is often upset because the atevi don't "feel" the same way as humans do... again that is going down the wrong path... he's missing the point. an emotion is not just feeling weak in the knees, or feeling a shiver up your spine, or feeling the blood rush to your face, or even feeling sad, mad, proud...

emotions are engagements with the world, and as such, they are much more complicated than that. when a person gets angry, it involves judgement--- one judges that they have been wronged or offended or misled or betrayed--- and it is directed towards something (usually someone) in the world, and it is usually intended to right that wrong or demand justice. when a person gets scared, it is prompted by something in the environment (the mental environment if nothing else), and it is intended to give one the extra boost of speed or to make one stop dead still and hide---it is a direct, usually proper reaction to the world (improper reactions tend more towards phobia and panic than "fear"). and then of course, take an emotion like grief, which is obviously a process, and even involves other emotions like anger and denial--- it is directed at, in this case, a personal loss, and also at one's own future end, and it is intended to give one pause to refigure one's life now that the loss has happened and also to re-evaluate one's life in the light that we all die and maybe need to get our affairs/act together to avoid problems for loved ones and their memory of us.

dagnabit I'm going off on a tangent already... well I want to go on in this vein but for now the emphasis is on: emotions are engagements with the world. they do involve a kind of intelligence, they can be quite intelligent actually, even though they are not in the same category as logic, but the important thing is that emotions are engagements with the world.

they are part and parcel of the process in which we define ourselves (define who we are are individuals and as communities, etc), which is an ongoing, ever-adjusting process; they are how we connect with each other; and they are how we connect ourselves to our reality.

humans (generally speaking, for the purposes of this conversation)... how do I put this? humans are many-tendrilled things. lol. ok, I mean that humans engage with the world in many varied and prolific ways... humans tend to latch on to many people, many things, many places and take all these things into their definitions of themselves (they define themselves in terms of relationships to these things, personally)... humans tend to connect to whatever looks good, whatever looks promising... humans seem to want to connect with their reality in as many ways as possible, as if they are hanging on for dear life.

since we're primarily discussing love and man'chi--- Merkins tend to use the word "love" to such an extent that god only knows what it means any more: we love our families, our friends, our sweethearts, our pets, our cars, our homes, our flat-screen tvs, our country, our lofty ideals, our favorite song, our pizza, our new shoes, our cell phones... and we could use all those examples, in the context of defining oneself in terms of relationships to things/reality, but maybe we should stick to "love" referring primarily to people and places one is really bound to... just for now anyway.

so humans connect to other humans, not completely indiscriminately... oh no, not indiscriminately. we (whether knowingly or unwittingly/subconsciously) surround ourselves with or attach ourselves to people of a certain kind, and those relationships help to define us. it helps us to feel secure. love being a two-way street in good conditions means that if I love you, then you define me (or figure into my self-definitions of me) and I define you (similarly). being needed by another--- or, more to the point, by [i]all[/i] the others that we love--- helps us to feel secure too.

our love-relationships (and again, not meaning erotic or even philial love, as love could be for pizza I guess if that's how you define yourself??? people say it, at any rate) define who we are and provide us with peace and stability, such as anything ever does--- that's the purpose behind it all.

and humans work that way.

but atevi, apparently, to my understanding, are not many-tendrilled things. :atwink


they don't latch on to here and there and her and him and everything else. this would not help them to feel secure and peaceful; to them it would be utter chaos and disorder and great unrest. they're not clinging to reality in all kinds of directions.

they, instead, find their place in the hierarchy. others test them, and they test others, in the quest for finding out who fits where in the hierarchy, which is an ongoing, ever-adjusting process. bihawa. they find where in the hierarchy they fit, and, having found their place, they are secure, comfortable, and happy--- as are the others in the hierarchy, now that everyone's niche is well-defined.

finding their niche in the hierarchy, and serving the purpose which inherently comes with that niche, defines them. that is all the definition they need. that is the only connection they really need--- any more would throw the arrangement into disarray (although I know that's an oversimplification; an ateva can have competing man'chiin; they're not quite happy in that situation however; also there are lesser man'chiin, I know).

also, they derive their purpose from the hierarchal structure, so much so that man'chi only flows one way. while they apparently want the upward flow of man'chi from subordinates (and sometimes from equals? not sure), because it reaffirms their position and purpse, they'd be completely discombobulated if the object of their man'chi (say the aiji/etc) somehow felt man'chi to [i]them[/i], because the hierarchy would collapse, and that would rob them of their purpose. their purpose in life, really, at least to some extent, would be threatened with horrible ambiguity if not outright overturned.

atevi always make me think of mandalas, and everything being beautiful, deceptively simple, and in perfect order. this is where they derive their peace and purpose.

if a human could find his/her place in an atevi hierarchy (as Bren apparently does, whether he realizes it or not), then he'd get that satisfaction of being needed by his subordinates, appreciated by his equals (those who had similar man'chi, anyway), and fulfilling a purpose for his superior (which is, in a way, also a variation on being needed).

so, really, it isn't that the atevi don't [i]feel[/i] many of the same things that humans do, they just have different ways of satisfying those emotional needs. they have different ways of engaging with/handling/ connecting to the world/reality. and it's not something that is entirely without intelligence or choice, as long as one is aware of the choices (or the possibility of choices). (how many people would be "in love" if they didn't know the word?)

there is potential for at least a human to fit into an atevi society (as we see, with Bren, already), and maybe for an ateva to fit in with a human society (in theory; I really doubt one could find enough order to keep an ateva sane, living with humans! :rolleyes: I mean, good god, I wish I could find my niche; I wish I knew what my purpose was! I daresay the atevi are onto something!)