#248BF2

[teradaya]

[Color!]

So this post goes up at a very late hour. Such as 4:17am. People are usually asleep around that time, aren't they? Whoops. Needless to say, Ryouma has had a rough night unbeknownst to anyone but himself and now can't quite fall asleep. So. To the laptop he goes!]

Let us think on some things, my fellow insomniacs.

Though I guess I should also say if you've woken up just to read this, then don't be silly like me. Get yourself comfy again and shut those eyes. There we go, that's better, hm? You can always come back in the morning.

But, I was saying. I find myself being kind of contemplative tonight and I figured we can all (well, those of us still foolish or unfortunate enough to be awake at this hour) bounce our thoughts around. So tell me, what do you think it means to be "alive"? Is it purely a physical thing? If you're breathing and your heart beats, then you're good to go? Or do you qualify it with gained experiences, such as enjoying certain foods or falling in love for the first time?

Is there something else I haven't thought about?

Personally, I fall more into the second camp. I could argue that life isn't worth living if you have never sailed on the ocean at least once and experienced all that it entails. But then I wouldn't begrudge anyone who is simply happy being physically alive. And that's important, too, for sure. You can't rightly live through things if you're actually dead.

Let me know. It feels like it could be a long night.

Comments

[teradaya]

I've had longer, so it was bearable.

If we ever tame the ocean enough here, then I'll take you out and you can tell your own stories.

[Because appreciating his own words is great and all, but they don't compare to the real thing.]

It's hard because there's no set answer and so there's nothing to forgive. But that's probably the simplest way to explain it and I agree with you. But like I said, I lean toward the experience-having as being significant, though there's nothing bad to be said about just existing if that's all you can do.

[youwillbeunequaled]

[... He's worrying about you. Especially in the context of what you're saying to Mutsunokami.]

I would enjoy that very much. I hope we have the opportunity.

If I may ask, if only existing is a form of life, might you believe tsukumogami were alive before being given human form?

[This is... mind-blowing trains of thought for him. (Help this is getting so confusing and it's only three comments in.)]

[teradaya]

[Hey, don't worry, you'll get wrinkles.]

Me, too, I'm dying being stuck on land all the time.

[Ah, that's a tougher question to answer, though, and Ryouma takes some time to think on it.]

You mean tsukumogami at the point of them having developed a soul, right? Gotten a soul? A hundred years into their physical existence or however it goes.

I guess if, like that other person is saying, people or things that are undead can be alive, then why not a tsukumogami in that form? But then I never experienced that.
You did, though. Can I be nosy and ask how you felt before you got your current body?

[If he even felt anything.]

[youwillbeunequaled]

How I felt?

I have memories, but I cannot call them experiences. I did not have a mind or heart with which to think about what was happening. It just "was".

Perhaps it was a sort of life, existing, but not living.

That is for me, though. I cannot say it is exactly the same for all Touken Danshi.
[Mutsunokami's shared memory with him was much more... vivid than he was expecting.]