Fire: “What are you doing here? Fool. I’m god on earth now. You’re neither wanted nor needed. It’s over.”

Ice: “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

Fire: “Bah. In war, it is I who kills. Flame-throwers, the gunpowder propelling bullets, bombs, and best of all, but rarely used, atomic fire. Oh, it warms my heart to see all that death and destruction.”

Ice: “Yes, but I am your best partner, though you know it not.”

Fire: “You? Hah. Okay, I grant you, frostbite and cold have destroyed the bodies of many. Napolean and Hitler and Lord knows who else’s armies. But still.”

Ice: “No, you’re foolish and rambling as ever. I’m not talking about how I can help you kill. I’m talking about how I prepare the ground for you. Make people not care. Encourage the turning of a cold shoulder, a blind eye. Without me, people might never turn to you. Without me, how could they contemplate intentionally ignoring the truth? How could they embrace the litany of lies that lead to war? Who would willingly kill others if they clearly saw how useless and cruel it all was?”

Fire: “Yeah, yeah. I doubt it. Fire begets fire. Hate begets hate. What does your little chill of indifference have to do with it? Be gone or I’ll melt you to water. Boil you to steam.”

Ice: “Perhaps. But I might douse you to smoldering embers. I suggest you think about it. We can work as partners. Each making the other stronger. Actually, we have been partnering, but I’ve never gotten the credit I deserve! You’ve ignored me too long.”

Fire: “Hah! Not nearly so much as you have ignored me! You’re useless without me!”

Ice: “Fine, if that’s the way you feel, then this is goodbye! Forever.”

Humanity decided to open its heart; embrace empathy; dismiss the lies of “other” and instead loved everyone as sister and brother. Fire shook his coronal locks in disdain and slunk off to reinvigorate himself in the core of a distant star.

Ice regained his rightful throne at the poles of the spinning emerald and sapphire planet. He abandoned the heart of humanity. Unbridled greed became nothing but the shadowy memory of a bad drug trip or a recurring nightmare — still scary to contemplate, but powerless to destroy the trajectory of life’s grand and glorious growth.

 

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Start of the First Book of The Myths of the Veritas

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Table of Contents for the Second Book of the Veritas

Table of Contents for Essays on America 

Index for a Pattern Language for Teamwork and Collaboration