Peculiar Soul Chapter 55: Hamartēma, Ataraxia

It is difficult for many n to reconcile the exhortation to love ones brother with the reality of war and conflict. The divinity within us is rciful and kind beyond human limits, and we hear it calling out to the divine in others even as they strive to their utmost against us.

All n are n; this is not a re tautology, as it is a truth oft-forgotten in the midst of struggle. n shape themselves with their will, however; and the shape they take forms their eventual purpose. For every righteous man, there will be another man raised up to that sa height that he may test the strength of the firsts conviction.

This righteous man, should he prevail, may well weep at the death of his foe. It is good and proper to mourn the passing of a man - and he was a man, this vanquished enemy! But in setting himself against the divine he created a choice: that only one of these n may live.

There is no third option that might avoid this test, once set; the path that leads away from fate brings its travelers to stagnation, and in all things that is a crueler fate than death.

- Saleh Taskin, On Reclamation, 687