Praxus Axioms

Note from Kronos: I'm not sure if Praxus is around anymore, but I got a lot of value from his thoughts on pain. Rather than have them lost on the old forum, I thought I'd go through his posts, get the ones with value, and collect them all together as a sort of Book of Axioms.

On His Name

I chose the name Praxus for a very specific reason. The word "praxis" means...

1. practice, as distinguished from theory; application or use, as of knowledge or skills.
2. convention, habit, or custom.
3. a set of examples for practice.

I came to the Sith in the mindset, not to practice being bad or dark, but to be practical. I've been involved with the Jedi community for 20 years. Their thinking, discussions, and actions simply aren't practical for me in my life. I don't measure up to their standards and I have no desire to.

On Pain

I don't mean to derail this thread, but I've suffered some serious pain in my life, both physical and emotional. I can tell you, through personal experience, that pain IS a great teacher. I said nothing about the terminal ill. However, those who survive their illness would probably agree with me. Anyone?

Everything we do in life involves pain. Think about it. Or, prove me wrong.

The two states that are generally thought to govern the human condition are Love and Fear. Hate is generated by fear, not the other way around.

However, love and fear are generated by one other force: Pain. Everything we do, think, or say is in some way influenced by Pain.

Certain people, whom I won't mention at this time, have accused me of allowing a single accident in my past to define my life. A car crash. While many may be able to take such an event and put it behind themselves, the fact of the matter is that that single event is still affecting my life currently. The pain, the injuries, and complications... they continue on to this very day, after 11 years. On a daily basis I'm reminded quite starkly of my mistakes, my stupidity.

To those who don't understand that can go to hell. Think whatever you wish. But as much as I regret my past actions, I would not be nearly as strong as I am today if it weren't for those mistakes. Pain and suffering mean little to me now. Death no longer frightens me. And in that sense, what can touch me?

Peace is a lie; there is only passion.

My source of my passion is love. Which is also the source of my pain and sacrifice.

The one thing I've wanted all my life is Love, and little else. When I finally found it, the girl I had fallen in love with became distant, both physically and symbolically. During my time with her I was happy. The only time I ever felt true peace. That turned out to be a lie. And now it fuels my dark side.

The last two nights I had dreams of her. The first of which was bizarre, she was half man, half woman. The second, she kept changing form. First her hair was different, then her face, then her age. I'm not sure yet what that means, what my mind might be cluing me into, but I will undoubtedly explore it, hopefully to find some answers.

It's been almost 7 years since I last saw her. Odd that I haven't been able to let go, but at the time she seemed the perfect counterpart to my personality. We had so much in common. I loved all her talents and all her faults. Every night before I fall asleep I think of her. Some would call that pathetic, but only the ignorant, those who never had a true love.

That old saying "better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" comes to mind. I don't know how true that is. "Better" is a relative concept. Better how? Better to experience the pain than not to have risked it?

Pain is the fuel in the engine of civilization.

"No lesson is truly learned until it has been purchased with pain”

On Meditation

Not anymore I no longer meditate. I used to do it all the time, but it seems like a waste of time now. There's so much I want to do in a day. I don't have time to just sit around.

Simplify. Any activity can be meditative. There is no energy to be refilled, because it never runs out. You are over-complicating the issue, separating your meditation from your normal life. Make them the same.

Darth Draconis wrote: The sensation of potency is not the same as the possession of potency.

That's a much better point. I think we all feel the sensation at least once in our lives. I feel it occasionally. Most of the time it's an experience having to do with the weather (I have some kind of odd connection to it). Strong gusts of wind, downpours, blizzards, or powerful storms with lightning give me a sensation of potency. But I can't tap into it. I can't use it.

As for the use of meditation... meditating to access some feeling of power is missing the point of meditating at all. As I've heard it said, "meditation is both the means and the end". What you're doing is more of a technique, a method, of focusing on power. A potency activity. Not that it's wrong, it's just a difference in definition.

You don't use meditation; meditation uses you.

On The Force

The wedge is pushing further in. I find the Jedi are so far away from me now that I find myself getting angry with them. I guess it all comes down to one all-encompassing truth: everyone is full of shit.

When I spoke to my long-time friend Relan Volkum recently, I came to a realization in relation to this truth. No matter how much we talk about the Force or God, none of our words come within lightyears of what the true nature of divinity is. When I looked at that idea in my mind, I found something that I can't express in words. I got my first real sense of the truth. What is it? Who is it? Where is it? It's impossible to say, but it was so powerful that it gave me my first sense of fear of what It is.

What could be so powerful as to bring all that I see and experience into being? Not even our most advanced computers can build a single city down to the detail of a millimeter. We're talking about an entire UNIVERSE detailed down to the level of quarks (or strings, depending on one's theories on science).

The beyond is not just beyond. It is unreachable.

I am the Force, the Force is me, we are the Force, the code is the Force. Don't get hung up on distinctions.

What is your hatred directed toward?

To some degree I can relate. I've felt a sort of grand and all-encompassing hate, but there's usually a source. Something personal. Something negative that happened to you. Knowing the source will help you direct it and make use of it. Ambiguous hate will generally just drain you. Understanding its origin brings about self-knowledge, and more importantly, self-control.

On Death

I don't know if this helps, Tori Stolas' wife, after Stolas has passed away, and I am sorry for your loss, but I'd like to say that you really haven't lost anything. Life is never lost, but always continues on. Stolas, I suspect, would agree. So death is not something that need be mourned, but often celebrated. Your husband is free.

Your time is something you can never get back or replace, and you have a finite amount of it. It is literally the most valuable thing you have besides your life itself.

Get what you want.