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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9784602" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Unfortunately, NGL, for me, if I knew there was no hope like in that former example, I probably would just...waste away. I can't bring myself to be cruel to others, and hedonism has no appeal. I know I'm incapable of any physical fighting (or even much in the way of manual labor), and trying would just mean I suffer as I die.The latter is somewhat more interesting, because there are different kinds of "survival". Being an "elf" biologically might not survive, but that gives a choice of how to memorialize your culture.That is, for example, there are no more Mycenaean Greeks, nor Minoans. We don't even know how to read all of their language. We only recently learned how to read part of it (translating Linear B, the script that is Greek rather than Minoan). Yet they continue to affect us today, in various ways, and we continue to look back at them and wonder, and try to understand. That's a legacy, despite the dramatic break. Egypt (Kemet), Harappa, all sorts of ancient places, are legacies too. Even if your people end, your culture doesn't have to. While I think it might be hard to grapple with at times, that, at least, is a question I could be motivated to answer. "Your world is guaranteed 100% doomed, you don't know when it's gonna happen but it IS going to happen, these are the last days and nothing will survive it, not even a legacy will remain", by comparison, is "okay, so...maybe try to have a good time for a bit, maybe help somebody if you see them suffering, but otherwise, lay down and die, it'll be less grief that way."When there's even the ghost of a chance that something could differ, awesome. I don't have to succeed (though that is obviously preferred), the attempt matters. "Till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the last Day." I dream of saving worlds like the World of Darkness setting, which I don't believe is beyond saving. But if I genuinely know that it's beyond saving, and not just that, but it could expire any minute...I'm gonna get my affairs in order. If I can fling myself at something that might be useful to someone I like, sure, but otherwise, no point. Caring just deepens my suffering while changing nothing.</blockquote>

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