MY MORAL COLLAPSE AND THE AMAZING RECOVERY OF THE SELF (standard:science fiction, 626 words)
Author: Sjaan Thomas	Added: Aug 11 2005	Views/Reads: 3244/2	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
HERE'S A BIT MORE OF THE JOURNEY.

I was on a hunt to the north when I first experienced a world far away
from my own. Not only my world as a hunter, but my tribal world as 
well. I had seen the smoke from there fires a long way off, they were 
not the nomads we had encountered before and they had never lived or 
hunted this land. If I had only known then I would have personally 
destroyed every one of them instead of returning to tell my tribe of 
their presence. Unfortunately my mind did not contain the knowledge 
that they were not just visiting, and that their intentions for our 
land and us were of the most spoiled nature. 

For the first few seasons they kept to themselves and us to ours. They
knew we were there but never showed any attempt to acknowledge us. Then 
when I was on a hunt to the far west, two ambassadors from their tribe 
had greeted my tribe and offered gifts to our chief, which he 
customarily received and showed his gratitude by an offering of meat to 
the strangers. They stayed for a short while then invited the shaman to 
visit their tribe, he agreed to do so the next day and they returned to 
their people. All of this I was told upon my return the following day. 
The shaman and his apprentice, my brother in-law, had both left for the 
new settlement. In the weeks that followed many tokens and gifts were 
exchanged between us. It was clear these people lived much differently 
than us. They rarely if ever hunted and it was not often they were 
found gathering tubers and other plants. Instead they had a crude form 
of turning the earth and spreading seed which they would latter reap. 
It would not always grow and when it did it was never as plentiful as 
what could be readily be gathered and grew naturally. For this reason 
the amount of land need by these people was very large and always on 
the increase. 

What if I told you the life you know and have lived up to this point
right now, was only a breath. Just one simple inhalation of life 
itself. All that death, just a quick exhale that's over before our next 
breath begins. What if you didn't have to remain the person you are in 
this time but could be anyone that happened to live in any time before 
or after this. Not only that but you're not just human, you could fit 
the form and live the life of a thousand wildly different and amazing 
creatures. That your confined awareness was a blink to the self that 
truly resides within you and all your forms. I know what you would say, 
the same thing I said “go away.”. 

The human form always seems to take the longest. Even if  it's actual
length in time is shorter than other beings. Take for instance the life 
of a red oak, which has a  considerably longer lifetime than the human 
form, the experience of being for the red oak seems to pass rather 
quickly in comparison. It all comes down to the specific awareness of 
any certain form. Humans generally seem to have a very high specific 
awareness of self, which is counter set by a very low external specific 
awareness. The red oaks specific awareness for the external on the 
other hand is extremely high, where as it's awareness of self is 
primarily on the sub-conscience level. You would more than likely be 
surprised at the quality of life a red oak can enjoy, it felt nice to 
stay still for so long. I hope you realize how beautiful it is to be 
anything at all. 


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