Trigger warnings for depression, and maybe borderline suicidal thoughts?
Why am I doing this?
It is the Scion Season of 1321, and Tiffany Soulstrider does not know what to do with her life. Until last year, her purpose had been sure, her determination unwavering. Now, her confidence is shattered, her enthusiasm gone, and her goal crumbled to ashes.
Why am I doing this?
She glances around the field she is standing in, outside of Applenook Hamlet. They are preparing to harvest, because they must eat, or trade, or because they don’t know any better and they’d never questioned their life’s purpose. But Soulstrider had always questioned such things
And now, she does not know why she aids the Seraph in fighting the centaurs, or in arresting bandits, or in keeping pirate activity down. She can’t do nothing, that’s why. She has no home - no home that welcomes her, anyway. She has no friends - no friends that understand her, at least.
So she fights for the Seraph, because she might as well do something she’s good at, and she might as well do something that’s helpful.
She wishes her life were as simple as the harvest that the farmers of Applenook Hamlet are planning. They do what they do because that is how their families have always done it, because their fathers taught them.
That’s what she had been going to do. She had been going to follow in her father’s footsteps, helping him do his life’s calling, his Wyld Hunt. She had been going to do it for him, when he died.
But she is not capable of fighting what she needs to fight. She knows how to fight centaurs and bandits and pirates because she knows, had trained extensively, in fighting Risen. Undead servants of a dragon.
She cannot get close to the undead. So she fights centaurs and bandits and pirates - why? Is it a mockery, a pale, twisted version of what she had always longed to do? Is that why she does this pointless thing, out of all the other pointless things she could be doing?
Deborah had told reminded her that they had their mother’s legacy to fulfill, as well. That’s what Deborah is doing - fighting with the Seraph. She finds meaning in it.
But what does it mean for something to have meaning, except what purpose we give it?
These farmers find meaning in their harvest because it allows them to eat, one way or another. Deborah finds meaning in her fighting because she is going to make Kryta safe, as their mother had done. Soulstrider had found meaning in following in her father’s footsteps because she loved him, and he needed help, and he was the only one who accepted her. It was a service, a duty, owed to one she respected above all others.
Soulstrider had never known her mother. She cannot find such meaning in fighting for the Seraph. Soulstrider had never needed to farm or trade for food - and it is worse than pointless to farm when one does not need food or trade.
So she fights, because it is the closest thing she can get to honoring her father, using a skill she had learned because of him to further a goal that her mother’s ancestors had started.
It only has meaning enough to keep her alive. It’s the only reason she has left to live.
That… and because, somehow, deep down, she knows that she must see her father’s Wyld Hunt through. It is her responsibility. She cannot just let herself waste away and die when her father’s task remains unfinished. It is another pointless tether to her life, since she is physically incapable of doing her father’s Hunt.
And yet, it is not so pointless. It has enough of a meaning that she trudges through, day after day, doing nothing in particular but just being randomly useful, without getting so depressed that she stops putting forth the effort to stay alive.
Because maybe - just maybe - what she is doing does mean something that she just doesn’t know about yet. Maybe - just maybe - her existence will mean something, someday.
At the very least, she might someday find as much meaning as these farmers do, harvesting and planting year after year after year, for no real purpose except to stay alive, because they don’t know any better and they’ve never questioned why their lives shouldn’t have any meaning.
Soulstrider knows she will never get there. She will always question why her life has meaning, because, really, what does it mean to ‘have meaning?’
But someday, maybe, her life might mean enough that she is… not happy, or content with her life, or excited to live her life… but enough meaning that she wants to go on living for more than the wish to have a meaningful life.
Guild Wars 2. Pictured: Barchetta in Applenook Hamlet. (Click to enlarge)
SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY
Engineer Barchetta in her Sunday finest, enjoying a picnic in Applenook Hamlet, just before tragedy struck (as heard in the podcast below).
Guild Wars 2 is a MMORPG for the PC and beta weekend event 2 is currently ongoing. It will most probably release sometime during Summer or Fall of this year.
