beginnings, pt. iv

When the empire started collapsing around us, one of the first things I did was try to think of everything that had changed as the beginning of something new, rather than the death of the old. For instance: I had been a scholar in the employ of the principality; when there was nothing left of the principality to serve, it marked the beginning of my tenure as an itinerant scholar, one who served no master but the truth.  (It was a construct, of course, but then, so is royalty.)

It's hard to figure out where to draw the lines. When, for instance, did the scholar's robes I wore become so tattered and worn? They were once new and clean, a symbol of the status I enjoyed as a servant of an empire that had not yet realized it was dying. At what point, do you think, did it begin to die? At what point did it cease to be a living empire and begin its eternal existence as a dead one? At what point will people begin to see it not as an entity with a real effect on the world and begin to see it as lore and legend? I had often traveled far and wide in my efforts to uncover the secrets that too often are buried and lost by the sediment of empire, but at what point did my travels begin to feel so lonely? When did it begin to feel like I was not so much unearthing that which had been forgotten, but archiving that which we could not afford to forget? When did my curiosity begin to feel so important, so urgent?

As you can see, it became something of an obsession. Perhaps it was the only thing between my conscious self and the revelation that everything I had once known was gone, that the world was a colder, harsher place than I had believed, that I may have been the only living soul trying to make sure that, if it could not be saved, it could be remembered. Or perhaps my mind simply latched onto this new challenge because it seemed so insurmountable, because the very notion of a beginning is ultimately arbitrary. When does night become day? When does a kitten become a cat? When does a difficult task become a fool's errand?

When I first enrolled at the university, I believed that I would be finding answers, but of course it has always been the case that the deeper I delve, the more questions I find. The end of all things, though it has changed many things--my relationship with the wilderness, the way I dress, how my thoughts are formed--has not changed that.

But that's enough time on this little aside, I think. There is work to be done; time to begin.