>>33742
for some reason i find it hard to accept your reasoning.. it's obscured behind so many assumptions, presented as if they were absolute truth, which makes it kinda hard to even begin to unravel, but i'll try for your sake
first impressions:
ur presenting "sharing the same burden" to be equivalent to "in the same situation", with the same set of circumstances and tools available for each of you to use (if the circumstances were different, they wouldnt be here? wrong. consider the impact of random chance, and include it in your model of the world) , almost entirely being in the same position, like occupying the same coordinates in some 2d number line, ignoring the third dimension (or the 4th)
with this first assumption, the scene is already set: "easing the burden" becomes "taking up the entirety of their burden", merging ur responsibilities together into one, as if that were the sole possible option for you to take (otherwise, to do nothing and persist as you have always been)
of course u would drown if you were to take the entirety of someone's being as "your responsibility", but that was never the only option, was it? u were never responsible for anything in the first place.
you present some very simple obvious observations, but the only conclusion you make is "if someone pulled my hand down into the ocean, i would drown". but no one asked you to offer your hand, a few words could work just the same.
the paths you took may be the same, and the circumstances of your plight may echo, but an echo is not a mirror image, the waves and the voice distort the final sound, so listen for the music and maybe you'll hear something unique to inspire your empty heart. all it takes is to be still, for a single moment. maybe you'll even find that you have something to offer of your own, a matching resonance.
in the end, we aren't islands in a void, disconnected from the web of the world. we are at once a collection of strings and the web they form, the string and the weaver, the weaver and the tapestry, and so on
if you disagree then cast me away like the rest. but if even single word of mine reaches you, that would be enough for me.
>When the lute-tuner strikes the kung note [on one instrument], the kung note [on the other instrument] responds: when he plucks the chiao note [on one instrument], the chiao note [on the other instrument] vibrates. This results from having corresponding musical notes in mutual harmony. Now, [let us assume that] someone changes the tuning of one string in such a way that it does not match any of the five notes, and by striking it sets all twenty-five strings resonating. In this case there has as yet been no differentiation as regards sound; it just happens that that [sound] which governs all musical notes has been evoked. Thus, he who is merged with Supreme Harmony is beclouded as if dead-drunk, and drifts about in its midst in sweet contentment, unaware how he came there; engulfed in pure delight as he sinks to the depths; benumbed as he reaches the end, he is as if he had not yet begun to emerge from his origin. This is called the Great Merging.