I'm Just A Soul Whose Intentions Are Good | Video| OTA

[ushahin]

[The first thing is that the phone has been propped between two branches on a tree in the orchard. Ushahin needs both hands for the task at hand. He's trying to peel a piece of fruit that has a bright purple skin on it. The problem is that if he tries to use his good hand to peel, his bad one can't hold onto it firmly enough, so it falls. If he tries to use his bad hand to peel while his good hand holds, his crippled fingers don't have enough force to break the skin. He'll be trying both methods alternately as he speaks in his usual soft tone.]

I was thinking tonight. A dangerous pastime, to be certain, but what I was thinking was this. How many of us who have been brought here are good? [He pauses, trying to get his nails under the skin, and he fails.]

I would ask how many of you here think you are a good person but-- [And there goes the fruit again, falling out of his bad left hand. He sighs and picks it back up.] --I don't think many of us have that high of a opinion of ourselves. I know I don't. [He's shattered too many minds and killed far too many people to think he's still got a soul anywhere close to being pure.]

So I will ask this. How many of you think those who are here with you are good people? Your family and friends, how many of them are good souls? [The fruit slips from his grasp once again.]

Damn. [He's given up trying to do this the nice, neat way. He ends the video by using his good hand for support, then biting down into the peel, and using his teeth to tear it partially off. It's not the most dignified method of being able to peel the fruit, but at this point, he's too stubborn to give up.]

Comments

text.

[torrefied]

[Oh good, philosophical debates, Mello's favorite.]

The idea that people are fundamentally good is both laughable and incredibly naive.

Re: text.

[ushahin]

[Ushahin raises up an eyebrow. That answer, coming from Mello, doesn't surprise him in the slightest.]

So is cynicism without a basis. You're telling me that in all your life, you've never encountered good souls before?

[torrefied]

[He can name maybe three people who would qualify as "good souls." His mother, for the few years he knew her. Halle, probably. Sharon, even though he knows she has done things that most people would condemn her for many times over. Even L and Near, the two people Mello admires the most, can't really be filed under the category of "good" people.]

I don't make claims without basis.

[So there's an answer - overwhelmingly, no.]

[ushahin]

Most people, I will agree, give into their base natures without striving for good. But to say that not a one is born who won't become good is saying that people are born with badness in their heart. That, to me, speaks of an intolerably sad world.

[torrefied]

I didn't say that there isn't a single good person in existence. I said the idea that people are fundamentally good is laughable and naive. Some people do work against their nature, and some even succeed at it. But what I have observed, and what others have observed in the "intolerably sad world," as you've put it, is that those good people are the exception rather than the rule. A philosopher by the name of Thomas Hobbes wrote that "The condition of man is a condition of war of everyone against everyone,” and you don't have to be a genius to see the truth in that.

Take, for example, the following case study: A boy happens to find an object of power - say, a notebook - that grants him the ability to murder whoever he chooses simply by writing that person's name down on the paper. A fundamentally good person would be appalled that such a thing exists, maybe even take it upon themselves to destroy the notebook so as to prevent it from falling into anyone else's hands. Instead, this boy uses the notebook to systematically wipe out anyone he deems a criminal, acting as judge, jury, and executioner for the population of that same "intolerably sad world" at large. Now, this boy might be an isolated example, but what of his followers? What of those who proclaim him a god? Murder is an inarguably evil act, in most cases. How can someone who commits such evil rise to such great heights of power unless people allow it? And how can people not only allow but enable such evil if they are, as you seem to think, fundamentally good?

[ushahin]

[This is the most he thinks he's ever seen Mello spout upon any one subject. That more than anything else is what interests Ushahin. It appears he's struck a chord.]

At the heart of your questions lies but two. When is it justifiable for a man to murder his fellows? And would a good person do such a thing? The simple answer would be never, but things are never quite as simple as all that. I have seen men murder for sport, out of cruelty and malice, to protect themselves, or simply because they were ordered to by a superior. To judge a man by such actions is to claim to know what his heart is. Aside from myself, almost no one can claim to know for certain runs through a man's mind as he commits heinous acts.

I present another scenario to you. A man is ordered to kill innocents by his god, a being he has sworn to serve for his entire life. These people have done nothing fundamentally wrong, but by their actions, they have set a plan into motion that will end with the death of that god. He asks them to give him a reason not to kill them. All they reply is that he must choose. The man kills them all, but regrets it for the rest of his life. Was he good or bad when he carried out the action? Was he still good or bad after the fact?

[torrefied]

I wouldn't call the man good or bad. I'd call him a fool. Loyalty is something to be earned, not given outright. Serving a god - or anyone, for that matter - without question is incredibly unwise. There are always variables to consider, and a god that is afraid of dying doesn't sound like much of a god worth following at all.

[ushahin]

Foolish, aye, perhaps it was. But that is the power of hindsight. He had already earned our loyalty a hundred times over by that point. My cousins and I would not have served him if we had doubts. We trusted in him and his plan for the future. Alas, even gods have their failings, and what he asked us to do brought about his own destruction.

[torrefied]

Then it would seem your god got what he deserved.

[ushahin]

I wouldn't speak ill of the dead if I were you. Someone might take offense to that.

[That particular someone's eyes are glittering in a most unfriendly manner. He won't hear of his god talked about in such a way. Dead seven months and still Ushahin is loyal to his memory.]

[torrefied]

Then I suppose it's a good thing you're not me.

[What, were you expecting an apology? Have you met Mello.]

[ushahin]

Thank the gods for that. Tell me, do most people find your bluntness charming or merely exasperating?

[torrefied]

I don't often concern myself with what most people think of me.

[ ... is a lie.]

[ushahin]

I'm so sure you don't.

[Ushahin would like to think he wasn't, but even after a thousand years, he still wishes to be part of humanity.]

[torrefied]

You don't know me. You may as well take what I have to say at face value.

[ushahin]

I take nothing at face value. People so rarely say what they mean and mean what they say.

[torrefied]

That's an awfully grand statement. What evidence do you have to back it up?

[ushahin]

By looking into their minds for over a thousand years. It teaches you quite a bit about how people think.

[torrefied]

[Mm, well. That does change the landscape a bit, if it's true. It sounds like bullshit, but Mello has seen too much to dismiss it out of hand.]

How are you able to read minds?

[ushahin]

Magic and practice. I learned it from the Were, the race I grew up among. It is a natural instinct among them. Not so among Men and Ellyl.

[As seen by Ushahin, there was a price to be paid to learn such abilities.]