I disagree. A person is more than the sum of their qualities, or maybe less. A person is deeper than that. A person is a small margin of choice as expressed against the overwhelming force of that person's environment. The full expression of a person's being may seem like next to nil next to the forces of their environment against them. To label a person as the sum of their qualities is to claim that people have absolute power over themselves. In order for that to be true, the person would also have to have absolute power over their environment, which affects them. This is impossible, since many people exist in the same environment, and they do not all have absolute control over it. Therefore, a person's qualities is not the expression of that person's being.
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Maybe the answer is in the very light reflected off our blades. Maybe that's what it means to be this creature known as samurai.
Last edited by Yukimura; 10-22-2007 at 05:42 PM..
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