Yes, you can create a black rose if you want. (you have a sick mind...)
I want to talk about names.
let me be frank here. I am a Lord with no power. I will probably never have any power. I will die as unknown as I was while I lived. I command neither men nor women nor werewolves nor aliens. I command no one and nothing.
I am not the richest Lord of Zor. In fact, most of my Dukes and Duchesses are richer than me. Somewhere vast treasuries overflow with money. My own is on a budget and I run my court by ‘making do’ and eating ready-made pasta.
Yet every day I dream of vast lands I conquer. I build great citadels and change the destinies of men and mice. I cause cold shivers to run down cowardly spines as I declare to them – I am Lord Akoroth!
Maybe someday. For now all I got is my name.
Names have value you know.
Anything that is crafted and takes time has value. It doesn’t have to actually do anything useful. That rubbish ‘hand-made’ paper (which is as thick and as useful as cardboard) is ten times more expensive than a machine pressed sheet of A4 and the ‘cardboard’ only takes a few days to make. ‘Who’ you are takes a lifetime. Literally. So that has to be worth at least one life.
And it is. Deny a human an identity and you deny him a life.
Identity is a construct. We build it one day at a time, carefully adding a touch here, sanding down an outcrop there.
Like the modern rose an identity will not grow naturally or independently. Perhaps you nurture a sense of humour or cultivate a gravitas among your peers or read a book at lunch-time or walk into work at the same time each morning. Something, anything added each day and then it’s effects are studied, assimilated and further changes made.
Through observations and reactions, we are all choosing who we become by looking at who we were and changing who we are.
So though I only have a name, it represents most of the ‘who’ part of me. I feel ‘Lord Akoroth’ is a fair-sized treasure that I have accumulated in this lifetime.
Most days it is enough wealth.
Possibly not this day since I am back to eating the pastas, but most days. I assure you.
