The sacrifices of resistance
The path of the warrior can be quite dreadful.
You see a lot of ugly things, experience a lot of betrayal, witness many changes and storms, and you get to feel humans from their various sides. Positive and negative.
Also... you lose a lot of comrades along the way.
People who fight with you for a similar objective or believe in the word you spread, whether they do that for virtuous reasons or for the same shady ones that originally brought you to the battlefield.
They die in battle, they change sides, they split off from your horde because you don’t fight for the right subjects anymore, or they leave because they themselves have abandoned the path of honesty, or they get so severely wounded during the war, so that they can’t go on with the road they have chosen. Also, they might meet a guy/girl in between and settle down because that fulfills them with something that feels larger than continuing a fight whose end cannot be foreseen.
Continuously, along the way, depending on how well it goes, how bad the losses are and who leaves you while carrying on, you keep asking yourself the question whether the path is worth it.
Whether the target of the path is truly worth all you sacrifice for it.
Whether the efforts all pay off, judged by the results you get.
And if it’s practically and morally justified what you do.
Weren’t there other means to achieve the same goal - or something comparable?
Was it necessary to agree to such an ascetic lifestyle?
Could the same ideals be won with fewer losses?
Was everything that had to be done, from your point of view, necessary?
And, at all... do you still continue with the path because of the origins you started it with or did your motives change in between - change into something that more has to do with habit and playing a role voluntarily? Because, meanwhile, you know nothing else what to do with your life?
All that for justifying a continuation before yourself and in front of other people who pose that question to you... For telling you, you’re on a path that feels right to you.
Looking down on the graves of those that have been lost during the war - comrades, civilians, enemy soldiers, innocent victims of the violence, children, even villains -, through the many numbers of them, points the fork whether it’s been enough dead people already or whether their deaths shall not have been in vain...
The path of the warrior itself can be the warning memorial to this mass of devastation - to these existences ended, to the lives spun and twisted along it, to human madness and all the worst abilities and character features mankind can display, to the austerity you have to endure and force upon yourself for it, and to the lasting loss of trust other than in yourself.
You see a lot of ugly things, experience a lot of betrayal, witness many changes and storms, and you get to feel humans from their various sides. Positive and negative.
Also... you lose a lot of comrades along the way.
People who fight with you for a similar objective or believe in the word you spread, whether they do that for virtuous reasons or for the same shady ones that originally brought you to the battlefield.
They die in battle, they change sides, they split off from your horde because you don’t fight for the right subjects anymore, or they leave because they themselves have abandoned the path of honesty, or they get so severely wounded during the war, so that they can’t go on with the road they have chosen. Also, they might meet a guy/girl in between and settle down because that fulfills them with something that feels larger than continuing a fight whose end cannot be foreseen.
Continuously, along the way, depending on how well it goes, how bad the losses are and who leaves you while carrying on, you keep asking yourself the question whether the path is worth it.
Whether the target of the path is truly worth all you sacrifice for it.
Whether the efforts all pay off, judged by the results you get.
And if it’s practically and morally justified what you do.
Weren’t there other means to achieve the same goal - or something comparable?
Was it necessary to agree to such an ascetic lifestyle?
Could the same ideals be won with fewer losses?
Was everything that had to be done, from your point of view, necessary?
And, at all... do you still continue with the path because of the origins you started it with or did your motives change in between - change into something that more has to do with habit and playing a role voluntarily? Because, meanwhile, you know nothing else what to do with your life?
All that for justifying a continuation before yourself and in front of other people who pose that question to you... For telling you, you’re on a path that feels right to you.
Looking down on the graves of those that have been lost during the war - comrades, civilians, enemy soldiers, innocent victims of the violence, children, even villains -, through the many numbers of them, points the fork whether it’s been enough dead people already or whether their deaths shall not have been in vain...
The path of the warrior itself can be the warning memorial to this mass of devastation - to these existences ended, to the lives spun and twisted along it, to human madness and all the worst abilities and character features mankind can display, to the austerity you have to endure and force upon yourself for it, and to the lasting loss of trust other than in yourself.