The Orc King (Forgotten Realms: Transitions, #1)
Any hope of prescience requires a constant questioning of what is, and a deepseated belief in the possibility of what can be. Viewing events as might the
historian requires an acceptance that my own initial, visceral reactions to
seemingly momentous events may be errant, that my “gut instinct” and own
emotional needs may not stand the light of reason in the wider view, or even
that these events, so momentous in my personal experience, might not be so
in the wider world and the long, slow passage of time.
How often have I seen that my first reaction is based on half-truths and
biased perceptions! How often have I found expectations completely
inverted or tossed aside as events played out to their fullest!
Because emotion clouds the rational, and many perspectives guide the
full reality. To view current events as an historian is to account for all
perspectives, even those of your enemy. It is to know the past and to use
such relevant history as a template for expectations. It is, most of all, to
force reason ahead of instinct, to refuse to demonize that which you hate,
and to, most of all, accept your own fallibility.
And so I live on shifting sands, where absolutes melt away with the
passage of decades. It is a natural extension, I expect, of an existence in
which I have shattered the preconceptions of so many people. With every
stranger who comes to accept me for who I am instead of who he or she
expected me to be, I roil the sands beneath that person’s feet. It is a growth
experience for them, no doubt, but we are all creatures of ritual and habit
and accepted notions of what is and what is not. When true reality cuts
against that internalized expectation—when you meet a goodly drow!—
there is created an internal dissonance, as uncomfortable as a springtime
rash.
There is freedom in seeing the world as a painting in progress, instead of
a place already painted, but there are times, my friend…
There are times.