i hope that you see – no hyperbole – the world would benefit from your end whatever relief you might need from me won’t deliver you from where you’ll be sent what made you think that you could set one over all – damn your intent privileging few because of your ineptitude to be mature thoughtless instinct to save your own, made victims of countless unknown uncaring punk, self-centred snake, you’ll never live down your mistakes what’s more, your acts – beyond the pale – were partisan + personal who made you god? myopic judge, pansophy marred, compassion crushed now – here we are, your luck consumed, my retribution coming soon but don’t expect this to be swift, your death will be quite progressive whatever release you might want from me will not spare you from the where you’ll be sent and i trust that you see – no hyperbole – the world will benefit from your end the way that you stare – beset, prepared – a depositioning you seem to accept just don’t misread this as a misdeed, you’re getting less than what you merit we’re not the same, you’re inhumane, if i back down you’ll do it again are we the same? am i humane? if i back down would you do it again?

you don’t know me / i don’t know you “empathy is the feeling that aims at the feeling of another consciousness. this means that empathy involves a felt response to another conscious being, that this feeling is directed towards the feelings of the other (but it may or may not be isomorphic with the other’s feelings…it doesn’t necessarily have to involve the exact same feelings), and that empathy requires maintaining a distinction between self and other. it allows us to experience others as ‘other.’ from a phenomenological perspective, empathy is just a feature of our everyday perceptual life. empathy is an aesthetic feeling, not essentially a moral one. this view highlights the embodied nature of consciousness” – dr. ellie anderson. plot twist: you/we don’t get to rush this

when something is described as being “oblique,” the insinuation is often that it doesn’t fit one’s delimited view of the world. strictly speaking, if a specific idea is not in line with a person’s own perspective – or alternatively, at a stark right angle – it’s harder to calculate, seen as abnormal + more easily dismissed. this is because people all have a tendency to process information categorically; integrating data that’s parallel (i.e. allied) or perpendicular (i.e. incongruous) is less work than having to make adjustments for ambiguity (i.e. uncertainty). however, while piloting through life with biases operational is standard, it’s also contrived (since full alignment of individuals into homogenous groups is a complete façade). in fact, as soon as one is able to observe with any depth the actual conceptions + principles of multiple others in supposedly uniform collectives, what becomes instantly discernible is that everyone is uniquely slanted or askew. in other words, assumed or avowed fealty to one sect or another is shallow, pedestrian + lacks the nuance that’s necessary to perceive actuality (which is as diverse as every single person that has existed, exists + will exist in the history of the universe). no two people are exactly the same, just as no two groups are entirely distinct. and this makes things extremely complicated – especially when encountering those who we are biased against liking…because it’s easier to write off entire groupings of people than to concede exceptions or have to rethink foregone conclusions. this is surely why many actively seek out or passively drift into insular associations with those who are somehow alike, since it provides a measure of comradery + simulated straightforwardness. yet – it also guarantees the resilience of prejudice, as alternatives to what has been arbitrarily labelled “normal” are routinely vilified, overlooked + attacked. but does this mean that people should altogether avoid taking sides? not necessarily, since there are a great many who maintain uncritically acknowledged ideologies that are intolerant, inflexible + would be better as inexistent (i.e. those who centre only themselves in a narrative, who alone benefit from their particular circumstances, who scapegoat or take advantage of others for their own gain, who cannot admit that they might be wrong, who are unwilling to change, etc). it’s more a matter of questioning everyone’s motives + allegiances – including our own – in order to expose false notions of superiority + corresponding factionalism. for while each of us may be inclined – even justifiably so – to write off entire groups because of the misdeeds of a few (and vice versa), it’s rarely that simple. all this to say, we should always be ready to have our presumptions fully undone; to equally stand with those who we might consider to be irreconcilably different (if/when they are behaving selflessly), and to be anti any word, action or movement that is obstinately discriminatory + oppressive (especially if the source of said bigotry is someone close to us or a group we might customarily call our own).

[warning: the following includes plot-revealing information about the first and second chapters of “the last of us.” if you have not played part one or two of the video game or seen any season of the television series, listener + reader discretion is advised] if there was one word to describe the videogame – and what will become the second installment of the show “the last of us” – it would be “turbulent.” the story, of course, follows characters ellie + joel through the post-apocalyptic landscape of a world where humanity as we know it has faced near extinction because of a highly contagious, parasitic fungal infection. people who have succumbed due to inhaling spores or being bit – a.k.a. the “infected” – are near mindless creatures that are motivated by instinct alone. as for the last of those who remain uninfected, their motivation is also survival – be it national organizations like the state-run “fedra,” revolutionary groups like the fireflies and the washington liberation front, off-the-grid communes like the town of jackson and the seraphite island haven, or nomadic wanderers. with no cure, factions of people have become siloed – concerned only about their own group’s continued existence – with no hope of living away from the ever-present threat of contagion. there was a chance for everything to change though, because of ellie’s immunity to the fungal cordyceps that were responsible for this global epidemic. in fact, the fireflies were on the verge of being able to develop an antidote that would conceivably have allowed humanity to experience invulnerability to further infection. but as we know from the first chapter of “the last of us,” joel – guided by the parent-like attachment that he developed to ellie – was unwilling to let her die during a procedure that would have brought to an end the hellscape that everyone was experiencing. instead, he massacred dozens of people in the process of saving ellie, including surgeon dr. jerry anderson (who we discover in chapter two had a daughter named abby). and this is where the story unsettlingly pulls people into the mælstrom. although part two of “the last of us” begins with a continuation of the narrative where joel + ellie are central characters, things take a sudden turn when joel is brutally killed by abby (as retribution for her father’s murder). ellie + joel’s brother are spared; however, the unexpected torture + execution of our protagonist sets players + viewers up to vehemently dislike abby…regardless of whether or not we see her actions as justified. what’s more, in the videogame version of these events, players soon become aware that half of their time would be spent playing as abby (which was a highly controversial yet brilliant move for creative director neil druckmann to have made). after all, empathy is catalyzed by taking on the perspective of another – and this happens on multiple levels throughout the disconcertingly heavy tale (especially in light of the historical events of 2020 + the years that followed). what makes “the last of us part ii” so philosophically complex, compelling + challenging is its ability to complicate our inclination toward dualism or splitting…because if one truly identifies with both ellie + abby, it’s not an easy or clear-cut matter of siding with one or the other. both have people they love + who love them; both have faced significant loss; both have justifiable reasons for vengeance; and both are deeply flawed. yet – what cannot be ignored is whether a character is willing to change or evolve for the common good (which is what seems to be at the heart of the moral entrepreneurship of this franchise). in other words, what if our preconceptions + prejudices about those we consider to be “other” are wrong? could it be that the often taken for granted hard line between hero + villain is blurry or even non-existent? accordingly, irrespective of who we might be predisposed to rally behind, the big question one needs to ask is what ultimately motivates a characters’ decisions: self-interest or altruism? in the case of the second part of “the last of us,” what rises to the surface after the violent churning of emotions is that humankind as a whole has some tremendously hard work to do ahead if we are to meaningfully coexist. and at the risk of choosing a side – all angles considered – whether or not someone loves or hates abby, what’s seen via the sparing of ellie’s life + the care she developed for the seraphite lev is a glimpse of how life could be different when people commit to a path of clemency as opposed to one of relentless, narrow-minded, partisan counterattack.