Have you ever thought about all the wrong in the world? I’m sure that you’ll reply yes, say that you know of the conflicts, the vine that rots the world from the inside, but do you truly? Could you ever imagine the pain that constricts every denizen of the world? The fruit of the vine that rots? It is like someone born in the desert, imagining the ocean beyond the sand. Tangible, yes, but so vast and far that it is forever out of your mind’s reach, almost Tantalus-like. Now imagine someone who has comprehended it. Someone, who calls themself a King, who has taken the knowledge- for someone must remember -of suffering and kept it all to themselves. Someone who allows their subjects to live in an ignorant bliss, gates them off from the outside world in a society he calls Above. The King has thought of everything to keep their subjects blissfully unaware- he allows no education of the world outside of Above, gives every penny of his wealth equally amongst all. And any stragglers, anyone feeling misery, anyone wanting to be free? They are released from Above, their wish granted, into the cold world. They go from basking in the warmth of infinite joy to fading on the hoarfrost of the truth. These misery-wishers go from happiness, what they believe to be the worst punishment, to the truth, the reality of cold suffering. And these dissenters crave release for a plethora of reasons- some crave to paint with the true palette of emotion, others reject joy in the belief that it is useless, that knowing pain is the only way to know anything. And they may be correct- though correctness is irrelevant and relative, pointless and pointed. Pain is an intangible thing, even more than the sea to the desert. It is unquantifiable, unprovable, relative to the victim and the punisher. Unlike a murder or a robbery, an event when something is lost and someone has taken it, pain is not measurable, losable, anything related. Pain is a measure of “right” or “wrong”, an intangible relative concept, as opposed to a measure of “did” or “didn’t”, which is measurable and physical. Even in anatomical terms, pain is a measure made up by our brain, not a physical concept or signal. So why would you crave an intangible thing? It is a strange manifest of sentience indeed. So I leave you to ponder: is the King doing a disservice? Are the dissenters right? What is the worst punishment? And is it better inside the walls or outside? And would you enter Above?
