Akhutai's Personal Journal & Research Notes

A clockmaker is not perfect. They try, by the gods do they try, but in the end all of the clock's parts will always have burrs, blemishes, and tool marks. These imperfections may be so small as to be invisible to the naked eye, but with clock parts being as small and delicately balanced as they are, they will still affect the function of the clock. So a clockmaker is also an artist. As artists, they become adept at balancing these imperfections against each other to make a precise and accurate clock. One gear spins just a whisper too fast, one spring rebounds a breath too slow, and the clock as a whole is balanced to as near perfection as a mortal can achieve.

So it is with the mind. A pressure from this memory, a beat from this impulse, and the whole thing functions as an organized whole to make an individual alive, instead of mere bag of flesh and bone. Much as a clock's parts wear out or wind down and so must occasionally be serviced by a skilled hand, so too must a mind be served.

A young mind, though sometimes warped or poorly treated early in life, and thereby in need of repair, still only rarely requires ongoing maintenance. As a mind ages, however, memories and impulses, thoughts and feelings, needs and desires, all become muddled, especially as more and more experiences are added to a life day by day. There are some minds which I have encountered that are so muddled and abused by time and experience that it would be the work of a lifetime to recover their full potential.

One mind I have encountered is of particular interest to me in this regard. This mind possesses more experience than I, and likely it, can even fathom. Yet in spite of the grime, depreciation, and even outright havoc and abuse wreaked upon it by time and experience, it remains sharp, resilient, and surprisingly balanced given its condition. I respect both it and the soul who owns it far too much to challenge its depths uninvited, but it intrigues me all the same. On the occasion I have been invited to work my art in that realm, I take the utmost precaution while there, to never disturb the extant stability, only to clear dross, lubricate worn functions, and restore failed ones.

Which is why I take personal offense that a blamed fool of a wizard decided that years of help by friends and colleagues of that soul were just not good enough. That he could repair centuries (perhaps millennia?) of wear and tear on body and mind by barging in, outright killing thought processes he deemed errant, and then simply throwing a wad of gods-magic panacea at the body. Never mind that he has no training in healing the body or the mind in any way beyond basic field first-aid, or that the defenses within this mind rallied against his intrusion. He must play the hero, "fix" everything with a wave of his hand, and fly off again in search of the next victim. I cannot fathom the willful, malignant ignorance that would lead to such incautious behavior when attending a person's physical and mental health. He would have done less damage had he opened her skull with an axe and funneled a measure of bleach into it.

A less civilized person than myself would commit themselves to reducing this wizard's mind to a crème brûlée should they ever meet him.