Everything Lost vs Lost Everything

 - "Come on Milla, we need to get home before it gets dark."
 - "But, that man looks so sad, shouldn't we do something?" - She replied pointing at the man sitting in the bench, near the fountain.
Her mother felt compelled to give proper attention to her child's plea, but was hesitant to be dragged into other people's lives. She looked at the man, staring blankly into the water, he barely moved, apart from his breathing and the single coin he kept rubbing between his index and thumbs.
She felt sad a first, she knew Malla was right, she should do something, but the more she looked at the coin, the more familiar this person seemed, until her brain connected the dots.
She grabbed the child's hand and turned to go away, pulling with enough force to frighten her.
 - "Wait, where are we... can't you do anything?" - She cried.
Amanda just walked, with a tear dropping from her eye, dragging her daughter until they are out of sight from the man, just after the corner and she stopped to wipe her face.
 - "Mom?"
 - "Dear, do you remember Vito?"
 - "Yes?" She answered somewhat confused.
 - "He lost everything last year in that accident, his family, his house, money, everything he had spent his life building."
 - "But that was not him!" She interrupted feeling uncomfortable from that sad story.
 - "True, but Vito didn't stop when he lost everything. He began using his time to make sure those kinds of accidents would never happen. He lost everything he had, but he still was filled with purpose, to help others, to do something. Sad as it was, Vito is living a normal life now. That man, " - she held Milla's hand stronger, but her hand was shaking, cold and sweaty. - " His name is Garid, and he had everything. But unlike Vito, things were not taken away from him, no event, no disaster. The only thing between him  and happiness was life itself. As years went by, people drifted apart from him, nothing he did helped, there was nothing to fight, no challenge to overcome, no reason to be more."
They stood there in silence for a while, Amanda shaking, trying not to cry. All Milla could do was hug her, give her the love she was taught to give.
 - "Someone who has everything and then loses it, has nothing to fight against. He can't be strong like Vito, he can only drift in life. He can cling to that coin, to those memories, but ultimately he has lost himself."
 - "But can't we help him? If he only had some love he would feel better!" - She chanted with a child's bravado.
 Amanda's lips trembled as they parted to speak - "I tried,,," - tears streaming down her face.

~ The Adventurer Chronicle 34 ~

... hit the ground with a resounding thud.
- And down he goes. Now this is what I want you to pay attention to" - she pointed at the fallen man - "When sustaining energy for a long period of time... any kind of energy, you have to keep an eye on your reserves. As we've seen here, he has been fighting holding an energy barrier, as well as offensively casting, and all of this stacks, faster than most people realize in the heat of battle."
She circled around him, but all he could was turn his head to follow her with just one eye open.
"See, everyone has limits, and while it is good to keep pushing them, it is unwise to do so in a life or death situation. You can usually push yourself over your natural limit, doesn't require any special training, just the will to do so. Who can tell the consequences of doing so?"
A girl in a blue dress shyly raised her hand.
- "Aliara!" - Neralda said point at her excitedly.
- "Well, when you push yourself too far you can fall to exhaustion. If physical you may be unable to move, mental you might pass out, and spiritual you risk your life."
- "Correct, but he was casting spells, yet his body is the one not moving, why is that? Also, why do we not immediately collapse as we hit the energy limit?"
The girl blushed slightly and indicated not knowing, but looking at the rest of the students, none of them seemed to know, so Neralda continued.
- "Thank you Ali, the reason is in the cycle of energy. We take energy from the universe, most of it comes from eating, but also we passively absorb from the environment. When you practice here, and reach your limit, your spells stop working because you feel safer not forcing yourself, but in battle, when something important is on the line, you will not hesitate to do it. But when going over, your body will go into a negative state, consuming bits of reserve it can spare. When the body feels the strain, it stops giving, and starts taking back. But since you can't give it what it wants, it forces you into an optimal state to take what it needs. In our case, that means the body needs to get energy burnt for mana, the interesting part is until he manages to recover a good amount of mana, any energy he gets is immediately taken to form back those reserves and recoup any losses. So for a big period he won't be able to cast, even if his life depended upon it, even if his body managed to move again shortly, he would still be running empty, and that is a dead mage."
Everyone observed attentively the explanation. Some looked a bit scared, started moving around as if checking their energy reserves.
- "So...

Imperceivable Identifiers

I'm colorblind.
I've known this since I was very little.
It caused a great deal of stress in my early life. It got in the way of education, I was made fun of constantly by other kids.
Two things came out of that.
I learned that I should not be afraid of it, or ashamed. It is part of me, I'm not unique, and I should have fun with it. So I did, I learned to make it into a funny thing to bring up and joke around.
I also learned that colors are not important... or maybe I should clarify, that no color is MORE important. Since colors are simple attributes of materials, they become as important as texture, reflectiveness, smell, bounciness and so on. And that is to say, color is not an important identifier of anything. So I stopped paying attention to them. I only identify color when called upon, or when looking at personal preference (I love yellow and black)
We still live in a world that gives out too much value to identifiers. Racism, sexism, prejudice. Anything like that will judge something to be better than the others. Black is bad, so bad that we can't call someone black. Being a man is good, good to the point that the world is full of advantages geared towards benefiting men.
We need to stop treating any identifier as anything else but a way to identify a person.
The tricky part is, removing distinction, without removing value, is complicated. Very hard to do.
I may not care for what color is an object, but I'm still vastly aware that everything has a color. I will still make choices based on my personal preferences, but at least with colors, I won't act like the color of the object makes it better or worse. After all, liking black puts you in constant attrition with how black is evil, for villains, for monsters, for sad and loneliness in most media.
That is a great exercise for me. Constantly avoiding those stereotypes, light is good, dark is evil in games.
The thing is, being dark, woman, tall, fat are still identifiers, they mean something. We can't ignore those attributes, if we did, there would be no distinction.
And that is the issue.
I know proper colorblind people can live perfect normal happy lives. But the life without colors is a bit worse.
As a game developer, and a fanatic player, I'm aware of how much difference color and sound can make to a game. The lack of colors or sound, can MEAN something, but when they don't, it is just a miserable experience.
Think of something you enjoy, a sensation. Be it looking at the beautiful colors of a field of flowers, feeling the warmth of a hug from someone you love, the smell of coffee in the morning, the taste of that delicious family meal or even the sweet melodies of your favorite composer.
Now imagine, just try, what it would be, if you could not tell the difference from one to another, from the good, to the bad.
Not sure people can imagine this, without experiencing this in some area. But then again, I don't recommend experiencing this.
I would just like that people could understand.
Understand how it is important to have those differences. To know that those identifiers exists. Because only when they exist, you can appreciate what you like.
For someone that can only taste rocks, that delicious lasagna tastes either like rocks, or nothing at all, that person can't enjoy that part of life, can't prefer one food over another.

Nothing is the same, everything is unique, but nothing is more important, what is important, is that we have the identifiers to tell apart what makes us happy, and what doesn't.

The Beating Paths

I was given a choice,
In fact, many times,
Now with no voice,
just a few rhymes.

I tried to be different.
Wished to be better.
Failed to really matter.
I just ended absent.

Past was left behind,
present a chaotic mess,
bleak the future mind,
no power, or access.

Soon my heart may stop.
But blood will still flow.
You can see the void grow.
In time, no more co-op.

Farewell, good bye.
Thank you, so long.
For what was not a lie.
Never made me strong.