I should be working on short stories, the next witch book, or preparing a release notice for when Fey Hearted is finally published. I should be, but I can’t.
It’s been nearly two months of sad, terrible, and tragic things. My home town (all of North Georgia really) was horribly flooded, a friend lost their mother, and Prince Charming lost someone very dear to him. Given enough time their pain will abate, but that’s not where any of us are right now.
My heart hurts. It hurts for my loved ones and the pain they are feeling. It hurts because I am powerless to help them. It hurts because I know this will not be the last time any of us experience these pains. My heart just hurts.
Under all that pain is something very important. Spirit.
Spirit is the often overlooked hero inside every one of us. Fiction of different types, be it novels, short stories, video games, or role playing games often try to quantify this part of humanity. Most of them utterly fail.
In a system with different races each will have an attribute. Dwarves will have thick skin and a bonus to mining. Elves will be stealthy and good trackers. Humans will have spirit. Which sounds good until you realize that they simplify spirit down to something silly. The human spirit regenerates magic more quickly or something like that.
Unlike what so much of fiction would have you believe, our spirit is not a trivial thing. It is fundamental to who we are. If asked we know that odds are never in our favor. We know we are only here for a very short times. We are aware that little of what we accomplish will be lasting. We know heart break and loss are inevitable.
Yet, we don’t stop. We don’t surrender. That’s spirit in action. Spirit allows us to move forward when logic dictates otherwise. It’s what keeps us going when life is hard, unfair, and cruel. Our spirit is why we never stop seeking love, no matter how many times our hearts are broken.
If video games weighted human spirit correctly everyone would want to be human because our spirit is an amazing thing. Faster magic regeneration isn’t a good representation for the human spirit. Instead picture a mixed race group fighting a Giant. One member of the group receives a terrible bow, gruesome and perhaps fatal. The Elves, Dwarves, Vulcans, and Romulans crumple, unable to continue. The lone Human keep fighting.
That’s the Human Spirit. It is indomitable, unrelenting, and unending.
