☀️ Arselia and Akonia

-- Let's put it this way: the book about the queen-singer uses wording that hints at general well-being, but in a specific, important aspect for the heroine – dissatisfaction. Perhaps I misunderstood, or maybe it wasn't the character's opinion, but the author's.

- It mentions a comfortable life; what exactly that means, we, the inhabitants of the distant future, can only guess, but it could very well also mean spiritual balance. For my part, I can assume that Laurencia's life after her meeting with King Flanaravi hardly changed, especially if her passion in life was singing, which the unexpected changes she experienced likely did not hinder. In other words, I think that some of you have overly dramatized her fate.

In any case, it's easy for me to say that such a fate would not be to my liking. Leaving a mark in history is a plus, everything else is a minus. In this regard, I sympathize with Laurencia a little, judging her primarily by what is written, and secondly, by myself. Simple and clear.

- In other words, if the ruler of the empire offered you to marry him, would you categorically refuse, or would you at least consider fulfilling your duty to him to be a fate unworthy of you? For a true knight of the crown, this is a rather unusual position, because it turns out that you are not acting out of a sense of loyalty, but solely because of a desire to fulfill a certain role that is pleasant to you.

-- In your example, I don't even understand the catch: a person dreams of jumping off a cliff, and then he jumps. Well, that's great; apparently, he is not interested in continuing the family, like you and me, and survival is not interesting, like you and me; let him do what he wants, why is that bad?

- The ancestors of this person overcame cold and hunger, fought with celestial beings and each other, built a society and a state, of which he is a part from birth and to which he owes everything he is, and he is not interested? Let him first fulfill his duty to his family and homeland, and then do what he wants.

-- Public good, in general, does not relate to feelings and emotions; it is an external factor that should be accepted and lived with, just like with physical laws, the will of other individuals, and so on. This good may correspond to your desires, or it may not. It does not help or hinder sympathizing with or, on the contrary, envying someone's fate... Unless you have no feelings at all except for public consciousness, but, however beautifully it may sound, in reality this is hardly possible; we are not golems. Even if we try to completely discard the personal, we will still have errors in thinking, errors in evaluation, and so on, which will not allow us to think objectively in terms of the public.

- Personal well-being depends on the well-being of society, and the well-being of society depends on personal well-being, and as long as we are not hermits, we must care about the public good as much as we care about our own personal well-being. A functioning state cannot be built on excessive individualism.

An alcoholic gets not so much happiness from another glass of wine as a temporary feeling of relief, behind which lies the continuation of a vicious circle.

- That's right, and in the same way, adopted children, good deeds, and other forms of self-deception bring a feeling of deceptive relief to those who have not been able to create their own family. There is, of course, nothing wrong with adopted sons and daughters, and even on the contrary – this is extremely commendable, but before that, it is necessary to take care of one's own offspring.

And as for constants... well, who defines them? Even about the laws of the universe, including physics, we learn more and more every year. Sometimes old theories turn out to be not entirely correct, and it turns out that until now our perception of reality has been greatly limited. The same is true for people. So, personally, I don't think it's right to focus so much on this. Life is too complex to be reduced to a series of variables.

- They are defined by traditions – the living experience of many generations who have gone through any imaginable and unimaginable situations before us, who have known life for centuries. Those who do not learn from the experience of the past are doomed to be lost for the present and have no future.