Based off The Young Man and the Sage, by Nora Spinnor, primer version for people who haven’t read the book as well as those who have:
Laolys, a newly elected politician, climbs the mountain to learn from the sage because he wants to make the world a better place. Upon meeting him, he is confronted with a difficult decision. Carrying on the sage’s teaching will help bring change, but at the cost of his reputation and political future.
At this crossroads, two questions arise, for Laolys and anyone who dares to seek beyond the conventional standard into the realm of innovation:
What is it to live life with purpose?
Will we still want the things we desire when we learn the true cost of obtaining them?
“I have often wondered how it comes to pass that everybody should love themselves best, and yet value their neighbour’s opinion about themselves more than their own.”
— Meditations, Book XII, 4
The truths Laolys will carry down from the mountain will be met with scorn, not because they lack merit, but because they threaten the illusions others have carefully constructed. Most would rather remain wrapped in the comfort of falsehood than confront the dismantling of their identity. This is how the world protects its stories.
This is no reason to withhold the message. Some rare souls will recognize the truth for what it is and use it as a stepping stone on their path to awakening. These few are worth the many who will turn away.
In time, what Laolys shares will ripple through generations, gradually becoming accepted. But he will not live to see this change, nor be remembered by name for sparking it. His reward is not in legacy, but in alignment, and in the quiet knowledge that he did what was required.
Awakening is not for the faint of heart. It demands a total unraveling of the ego. The life we once clung to collapses, revealing the futility of our previous pursuits. In that moment of clarity, we begin to glimpse what truly matters. The path ahead may seem perilous, but each step increases our strength.
This is the alchemical stage of Calcination, the burning away of the prima materia, the first matter of our constructed self. All is reduced to ash. But within those ashes lie hidden salts, gems of clarity, of essence, awaiting recovery. What seems like ruin is the beginning of refinement. This is the necessary first death, through which all true transmutation begins.
Before you reached a state of clarity, what struggles did you endure? Did you almost turn back? What made you plow forward anyway?