Thomas Malin the Philosopher

Everyday Thomas Malin ate a tuna fish sandwich while he drank a beer. He didn't really care what kind of beer, it just needed to be a beer. This was his 'philosopher's food' as he called it. Thomas wasn't like other people, or at least that is what he told himself. What Thomas definitely was though, was a philosopher. He liked nothing better than to drive down the east coast and find a secluded spot. Then he would pull out his lawn chair and a book and settle in for a good read. After the reading though, was time for tuna and beer.

This habit horrified his brother James. James thought Thomas was eccentric just to get a rise out of people, and maybe he was right to some extent. His family and most of his friends couldn't understand why Thomas acted the way he did. They would ask him questions like "Is there very much money in philosophy?" or "Why don't you become a high school teacher?" These were perfectly asinine questions in Thomas' opinion. How could he blame them though? That is who they were. They thought a lot about money and they taught school or did some other job they hated to make a paycheck. The thing about Thomas Malin though, was that he truly believed he was meant to be a philosopher. He loved Wordsworth and William Blake. He also was very fond of Horace, but he felt like he was missing something since he couldn't read Latin. His brother did his best to remind Thomas that all of this philosophy talk is fine, but it doesn't pay the bills.

"There we go with the money talk again." Thomas would find himself saying. He hated the idea of the forty hour work week. "Who decided that human beings should give up so much of their free time to be miserable anyway"? This was the primary reason that Thomas couldn't hold down a job. He was a good worker and so when he wanted to work he could. He just found he didn't have inspiration to work for more than a month or two before it became time to move on.

Despite being called 'fickle' by his family, he was always consistent with his desire to be a philosopher. It was maddening to everyone around him. They all thought he was the most rude and inconsiderate man they knew. Driving around and setting up shop on some beach somewhere. Then to make it worse they thought; he pretended he was crazy by insisting on his ridiculous tuna fish ritual. Once his brother had even threatened to have him brought in to a mental asylum, but the two men both knew that Thomas was not actually crazy. The problem was that his attitude was driving everyone else crazy. He was rocking the boat.

The thing Thomas knew that the rest of his family didn't was that living to acquire more stuff was a vicious cycle. He knew they would work their lives away and then all they would have left was the remnant of their lives, not the bulk of it. Unfulfilled and sad, they would turn to entertainment and vice to try and find happiness. That wasn't where you found it though. Contentedness comes from your calling. It comes from the work you are destined to do. Yes, Thomas knew philosophy would not pay his bills, but it wrote his mental health check. It kept him sane and happy. How much was that worth? Well, to Thomas it was worth more than a mountain of gold.

That was the reason that every day Thomas would bring his tuna fish and his beer. He would drag a lawn chair and a book and he would hunt for a place in the world where he felt he could reach past the physical chains that tie us to this world and reach a higher plain. He liked to call it a place where heaven and earth kiss. There he was a philosopher. There he was happy and he could learn more than in any other place he could have been. Then when he came back into his real world, he could be a teacher to those whose eyes were open enough to see and whose ears wanted to truly hear. This world has a habit of closing the eyes of its denizens. Making those who have eyes and ears just as blind and deaf as those born without those senses.

Thomas knew that everyone was not meant to be a philosopher, but he also knew that everyone has something they ought to be doing and way too many people will never do it. The price of success is to be ridiculed by those who don't understand, but the price of not trying is a life of never knowing what you could be. 

Should you seek your own place where heaven and earth kiss, be sure it is a higher plain and not a higher plane. I hear those have snakes.

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The Gates of Rye-Am

The city of Rye-Am is an ancient stronghold. It is built on a set of four hills overlooking the largest bend in the Eljur River. The great walls and stronghold attached to the city were founded by the patriarchs of the city in the days before anyone could even remember. These walls stood in what seemed like the personification of pride. Surely their maker was a man of genius rarely paralleled in his time or any time since. The walls of Rye-Am were supported by four gates, one facing each direction, and these gates symbolized the four pillars of life in the great fortress city.

The Amhurst gate faced to the east, named after the Amhurst family, one of the oldest and most noble families. They became wealthy through inventive farming techniques. Next was the southern gate called the Knights' Gate. This gate symbolized Rye-Am's reliance on the strength of it's own people to defend itself in war. This grew into a tradition of military service that was promoted throughout the ages of the city's existence. Third came the northern gate called the Temple Gate which opened up into the courtyard of the Great Temple. Religion became its own form of bedrock in Rye-Am and its devotees were like the sands of a sea shore. Then finally we come the western gate called The Gate of the Law. This gate is a symbol of Rye-Am's great emphasis on learning. Schools have always played an important role in the city, as has the equally important endeavor of trade because the Rye-Amians believe that commerce and good relations with other people groups bring about the opportunity to learn, both for themselves and those other groups. These four pillars, which the people of Rye-Am call The Four Gates are bred into the thinking of the people in the city. The have the visual reminders of the actual gates themselves, but they also have it taught in the elements of their schools and religious teachings.

The name of the city comes from the Amhurst family itself. Since time immemorial they were farmers and their specialty was rye. Therefore they named the city “Rye” after the grain and “Am” after the first two letters of their last name. The dash in the name came about because of the original Patriarch's son Avin, who really liked dashes. He at one point even suggested his father name the city Rye Dash Am, but his father said that was stupid and no more was spoken of it.

 This is a representation of what the Gate of the Law probably looked like. This gate was purposefully smaller than the other gates. The purpose was to symbolize that knowledge and learning were not flashy like the other pillars, but of equal importance. The two figures above the gate represent two Sphinxes, also called 'The Princes of Light and Goodness'.

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