Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-4441317-20180306065027/@comment-24729606-20180307024237

well as far as a different version of the ancient elements I would just like to pose a question right off the bat, so to speak. Why do we call them the five elements when really they are all forms of energy (kinetic in the form of wind or air if you prefer, fire, water, lightning and potential energy in the form of earth)? I for one have always tried to understand the underlying truths that nature in general and the universe in particular can impart (I suppose one could call this a lifelong search for either metaphysical or pataphysical truths). For example I've found that one rule that nature in general rarely if ever breaks is balance. If something happens something else usually happens to either counteract it, redress the imbalance anything introduces, or to increase something else in direct response to the change in question. For example say a massive forest fire flares up in say California. Yes that's bad because thousands of lives (human and otherwise) are endangered and massive collateral damage ensues. But after the fire has passed the earth is made richer and more fertile to allow local populations to repopulate the area. Another principle (although one I admit I had a little help in teasing out, from Isaac Newton who despite all his delightful eccentricity was a profound genius and Iroh from Avatar the Last Air Bender) is the principle of opposites and reverses. This is a bit of a derivation of the law of balance but no less significant because of that. If something exists its opposite and reverse must also exist (regardless of whether humans can, do, or will understand, comprehend, or become aware of their existence or not). This is reflected in the dualism of the four ancient elements (lightning not qualifying as an element because it is a result of the interaction of two or more of the elements) fire, water, air, and earth. Fire and water are not opposites (because both are necessary parts of the natural order) but they are reverses of each other. Fire requires the absence of water to  either begin or persistent whereas water is necessary to contain fire. Fire is a sudden intteruptive force whereas water is a representation of natures infinite adaptability. Earth is constant and changes gradually over immense spans of time whereas air (perhaps best personified by wind) is ethereal, necessarily capricious, and changes yet can be boteh benign and frightening (often both simultaneously). Yet before and all else all the elements (regardless of which ones one is talking about or which culture one is using as a reference point), ancient and modern, are simply forms that energy and matter have taken for however brief or lengthy a span of time (whethers its the seeming permanence of earth to the evershifting shapes and power of water, air, and fire). If we wish to understand energy and matter we need to cast aside even that basic distinction. After all if there is one truth that human history has born out time and again it is that those who changed the conversation (or better yet started an entirely new covseration) have set the examples we ought to use to guide and shape who we have become (and thus what we strive for). And what we must strive for is quite simple. We must strive not mirely to see and comprehend (for both are necessarily passive) but to understand and empathize with all life (whether we understand it or not) for all life (or at least all life on Earth) is one and all life deserves to exist and discover its purpose (for without purpose no life would exist at all)