big cold jug of sweet tea

[ms_completely]

"Like Hoom, you have in you something that makes a choice -- something that decides, This is me, this is not-me. Hoom could have been a murderer, couldn't he? Or he could have treated his children as his father treated him, couldn't he? It's that part of you that chooses that is your soul, Lared. [There] are some choices you cannot live with, you cannot bear remembering that you did this thing, because it is not the sort of thing you do. So you aren't just an echo. But you are part of a cloth, a vast weaving; your life forces other people to make choices, too. The men who honor you for saving your father -- don't you realize that it gives meaning to their lives, too? Some might be jealous of you, you know -- but they are not. They love you for your goodness, and that makes them good. But if there were no pain, if there were no fear, then what does it matter that we live together, that our lives touch? If our actions have no consequences, if nothing can be bad, then we might as well die, all of us, because we are just machines, contented machines, well oiled and running smoothly with no need to think, nothing to value, because there are no problems to solve and nothing we can lose. You love Hoom because of what he did in the face of pain. And because you love him, you have become him, in part, and others, knowing you, will also become him, in part. It's how we stay alive in the world."
-Jason, in The Worthing Saga (Orson Scott Card)

Thanks, Jeff.