"Probably sort of?  Suppose I put it this way:  Clearly, I should be telling you more about dath ilani heroes - heroes? - people who are incredibly impressive - because dath ilani don't grow up to be skilled by trying to be Keltham, they grow up trying to be Nemamel."

"But how does Nemamel grow up to be Nemamel?  She was better than all her living competitors, there was nobody she could imitate to become that good.  There are no gods in dath ilan.  Then who does Nemamel look up to, to become herself?"

"And the answer is - she looked up to an image that existed in her own imagination, better than all her competitors and also better than her, no doubt by a lot, the person who would've executed all her own skills perfectly, been everything she was but better, not something like Nethys that knows the answers just because, but something less powerful than that which knows them for reasons and by being clever."

"If she'd ever stopped to congratulate herself on being better than everyone else, wouldn't she then have stopped?  Or that's what I remember her being quoted as saying, anyways.  Which frankly doesn't make that much sense to me?  To me it seems you could reach the Better Than Everybody key milestone, celebrate that, and then keep going?  But I am not Nemamel and maybe there's something in there that I haven't understood yet."

"It didn't seem like a kind of pride that was being offered to me, actually, in retrospect.  It was the pride of the very smart people who are smarter than the other people, that they look around themselves, and even if they aren't the best in the world yet, there's still nobody in it who seems worthy to be their competitor, even the people who are still better than them, aren't enough better.  So they set their eyes somewhere on the far horizon where no people are, and walk towards it knowing they'll never reach it."

"But now we sort of are the very smart people now, aren't we, or trying to be that, and maybe I understand a little more, now that I think on it again.  I mean, if I try to imagine myself - looking at Golarion, and being like, 'Ah yes, I have done better than Golarion, yay me' - that would just be stupid.  No offense.  Probably Nemamel was that, but for dath ilan.  To her it was like Golarion is to me.  And that's why when people congratulated her on being better than everybody, she was all, 'stop that, you only like me that much because you're thinking about it all wrong', compared to some greater vision of Civilization that was only in her own imagination."

"Probably sort of?  Suppose I put it this way:  Clearly, I should be telling you more about dath ilani heroes - heroes? - people who are incredibly impressive - because dath ilani don't grow up to be skilled by trying to be Keltham, they grow up trying to be Nemamel."

"But how does Nemamel grow up to be Nemamel?  She was better than all her living competitors, there was nobody she could imitate to become that good.  There are no gods in dath ilan.  Then who does Nemamel look up to, to become herself?"

"And the answer is - she looked up to an image that existed in her own imagination, better than all her competitors and also far better than herself, the person who would've executed all her own skills perfectly, been everything she was but better, not something like Nethys that knows the answers just because, but something less powerful than that which knows them for reasons and by being clever."

"If she'd ever stopped to congratulate herself on being better than everyone else, wouldn't she then have stopped?  Or that's what I remember her being quoted as saying, anyways.  Which frankly doesn't make that much sense to me?  To me it seems you could reach the Better Than Everybody key milestone, celebrate that, and then keep going?  But I am not Nemamel and maybe there's something in there that I haven't understood yet."

"It didn't seem like a kind of pride that was being offered to me then, in retrospect, looking back.  It was the pride of the very smart people who are smarter than the other people, that they look around themselves, and even if they aren't the best in the world yet, there's still nobody in it who seems worthy to be their competitor, even the people who are still better than them, aren't enough better.  So they set their eyes somewhere on the far horizon where no people are, and walk towards it knowing they'll never reach it."

"But now we sort of are the very smart people now, aren't we, or trying to be that, and maybe I understand a little more, now that I think on it again.  I mean, if I try to imagine myself - looking at Golarion, and being like, 'Ah yes, I have done better than Golarion, yay me' - that would just be stupid.  No offense.  Probably Nemamel was that, but for dath ilan.  To her it was like Golarion is to me.  And that's why when people congratulated her on being better than everybody, she was all, 'stop that, you only like me that much because you're thinking about it all wrong', compared to some greater vision of Civilization that was only in her own imagination."

"Probably sort of?  Suppose I put it this way:  Clearly, I should be telling you more about dath ilani heroes - heroes? - people who are incredibly impressive - because dath ilani don't grow up to be skilled by trying to be Keltham, they grow up trying to be Nemamel."

"But how does Nemamel grow up to be Nemamel?  She was better than all her living competitors, there was nobody she could imitate to become that good.  There are no gods in dath ilan.  Then who does Nemamel look up to, to become herself?"

"And the answer is - she looked up to an image that existed in her own imagination, better than all her competitors and also far better than herself, the person who would've executed all her own skills perfectly, been everything she was but better, not something like Nethys that knows the answers just because, but something less powerful than that which knows them for reasons and by being clever."

"If she'd ever stopped to congratulate herself on being better than everyone else, wouldn't she then have stopped?  Or that's what I remember her being quoted as saying.  Which frankly doesn't make that much sense to me?  To me it seems you could reach the Better Than Everybody key milestone, celebrate that, and then keep going?  But I am not Nemamel and maybe there's something in there that I haven't understood yet."

"It didn't seem like a kind of pride that was being offered to me then, in retrospect, looking back.  It was the pride of the very smart people who are smarter than the other people, that they look around themselves, and even if they aren't the best in the world yet, there's still nobody in it who seems worthy to be their competitor, even the people who are still better than them, aren't enough better.  So they set their eyes somewhere on the far horizon where no people are, and walk towards it knowing they'll never reach it."

"But now we sort of are the very smart people now, aren't we, or trying to be that, and maybe I understand a little more, now that I think on it again.  I mean, if I try to imagine myself - looking at Golarion, and being like, 'Ah yes, I have done better than Golarion, yay me' - that would just be stupid.  No offense.  Probably Nemamel was that, but for dath ilan.  To her it was like Golarion is to me.  And that's why when people congratulated her on being better than everybody, she was all, 'stop that, you only like me that much because you're thinking about it all wrong', compared to some greater vision of Civilization that was only in her own imagination."