The burdens of truth

"To thine own self be true"... so say the priests and scholars. And yet, I find my own truths are like the edge of a sword. One side is sharp and the other, blunt.

I strive in my every day to be true, a paladin, one who is almost as holy as God. Yet also I am mortal, and crave the things my corporeal body desires. The scent of trees and fields, the companionship of my faithful horse, and the company of the few travelers I call friends. And too, the more lusty things: a strong ale, the taut bodies of bar-maids, good food, and respite from God-given duties.

Constantly is the struggle for my soul in the following of what I want and what I want to be. Why are some pleasures deemed less holy than others? There is beauty in the lowliest blacksmith's daughter's gasp, in the good cheer of a tavern as it's inhabitants sing and drink off the tiredness of a day's labor, the languid rest found when sleeping until half-way to noon after many days' hard travel.

I will never know why, Lord, you sought to make things this way. Why all things seem filled with both sharpness and bluntness. A duplicity in nature that makes one be both born and deceased, that berates certain pleasures and not others.

Yet it is not my place to question, for I am to be both a Voice... and to be mute. And so on I travel, in blessed misery.