L: For us, and creatures like us, much of life is not pleasant. Starting by being pushed out of the womb is hardly pleasant. What follows is proneness to illness and accident and rivalry with others (including other species). Lastly comes enfeeblement and eventually a collapse into oblivion. The last stage of life, for many of us, happens well before we are ready to let go of our conscious selves. Nevertheless, if we have had a long, satisfying and active life, well, even if we are resistant to its ending in most of us there is likely to be an underlying tiredness, readiness and acceptance. Our fear is more about not receiving the appropriate help, not being in control, having to fight the body to die; not a fear of death itself. That fear hardly exists in the process of ending life for the Syai individual.
In the imagined re-construction of society exemplified - better, illustrated – by the vision of life in the Syai world, I make no attempt to reveal a heaven-on-Earth (or Earth-like planet). There is, in Syai, no denial of life’s tragic side. Rather, Syai affirms the positively joyous side as every person’s birthright, and the birthright of human-like creatures. And for that, attention must be given constantly to maintaining the ecological interdependence of all life-forms.
If you know that everyone, including yourself, has been given every chance to live the best life they are inherently capable of, then death can be met with a sadness balanced by a kind of contentment. But how can a fully-functioning person appreciate life and face its end with equanimity, when many people sharing her planet are suffering avoidable deprivation, misery and harm? Widespread happiness must surely depend on a widespread feeling of belonging to a society where fairness and sportsmanship is the rule. It was appropriate, then, that Terres’ first lesson in Syai introduces play, or sport.
The Syai people have plenty of time to enjoy games of many kinds, despite the normal pressures of work. A civilization has to be maintained by tasks, many of which may have to be done by persons who would rather play or spend longer in bed. Incentives are required, using effective tokens representing rewards or pleasures. Syai society therefore has an economy or monetary system, though not of a kind known on this planet .
An important cultural constituent of the Syai system is that persons are paid for working but not for playing. Of course tasks have to be done and costs incurred to arrange sports facilities and equipment; but the notion of paying the players themselves (or their clubs) is completely alien to Syai communities. Terres must have been surprised to find almost everyone taking part in sports, yet with no paid celebrity sports teams and individuals. Big-business sport with professional players has not place in Syai society because it is a back-door through which greed-with-corruption easily creeps.
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