The Color In The Light

From Atlantic Roleplay Wiki

Title: The Color in the Light

Author: Reeve

A Meditation on Virtue

Herein, I endeavor only to illuminate a fascinating tangent I experienced whilst meditating at the Shrine of Spirituality and later as I studied at the Lycaeum. It is of paramount importance that you, reader, do not convey these incorporated musings into some absolute truth. Rather, take this work as you would a gambit in chess. A small offering that unlocks the board to new possibilities.

Too few, I think, make the time to understand the Virtues as anything but some rallying point for rules and laws.

Being individuals, full of passions and prejudices, they reject governance by Virtue out of hand. Indeed, even I have rejected rulerships where Virtue is said to be the backbone. To me, the Virtues mustn't be compulsory else they become nothing more than headings above a set of arbitrary edicts by councis.

But those same individuals who vehemently revile the Virtues still pay homage to them by way of the Three Principles. By no means should this be taken as evidence of a hypocracy. It is simply that only the most reprehensible things display no Love, no Truth and no Courage. In my experiences, many of the most hated and evil creatures have demonstrated admirable amounts of one or more of the Three Principles, and through them several Virtues. If legends and rumors be true Lord Blackthorne opposed Lord British because he would not sacrifice innocent people for the greater good. That is, to me, both Courageous and Loving.

So then with Blackthorne as a model and using only that narrow interpretation of his motives one could look to traditional Virtuous philosophy and extrapolate that even though Blackthorne opposed the probable outcome of a Virtuous society he still exhibited appreciation for Compassion, Justice, Honor, Valor and Sacrifice. For those are most of the pigments that comprise Love and Courage.

Here now begins the musing that I fancied enough to extol on paper. The most basic colors that we can derive are red, yellow and blue. One must also allow for white and black which cannot be perfectly made by the three colors. Red is the color of Valor, the only Virtue made solely of the Principle of Courage. Compassion is colored yellow. It is comprised only of Love. And Honesty is Blue. Again the centerpiece of but one Principle, that of Truth. It could then be understood that the colors of the Principles are red, yellow and blue.

Justice, it is said, is the Love of Truth. If one were to mix yellow and blue one would come up with green, the color of Justice. The same process works perfectly for both Honor and Sacrifice. Honor is Truth and Courage. Blue and red blended do indeed make purple, the color of Honor. Orange, the color of sacrifice, is wrought from yellow and red, or Love and Courage.

This leaves us with just two Virtues as yet undefined. White Spirituality and Black Humility. Interestingly, these two share a bond in their opposing attributes. Spirituality is rendered from all of the Three Principles, while Humility is made up of none.

I have been to many places and the only connotation common to black in all of those places is that of respect. One who wears black is not commanding the respect of others but showing respect. That, I think, is why Humility has been assigned to Black. Acknowledging one's place is a show of respect, and a way of earning some for yourself.

I was once afforded the opportunity to aid a scholar here in Sosaria. He was quite intrigued by the light of the sun. He showed me how taking keenly crafted glass of triangular cut could break up the daylight into predominantly red, yellow and blue rays. What he was searching for in this I cannot say. Nor could he explain how three such vibrant colors could be concealed in what we know as white light.

Nevertheless white is the color of Spirituality and it is made of all Three Principles. All eight Virtues are bound in white. Light, bright white light, is what enables us to see beyond our own thoughts and feelings. Spirituality is a way of bringing us together. It is, I believe, the canvas upon which we paint with all our myriad colors that Truth, Love and Courage allow.

And what is black if not the signature of the artist? A small offering from one humbled and awed not only by that which flows through him to the canvas but also the majesty of the efforts of all others towards that same work at which we all toil.

Signed in black,

-Reeve