While we cannot and should not reject our core selves, to ruthlessly prune away all other influences simply because of rules is absurd. It is better to die for your beliefs than to render all your choices to the proclamations of others.

[ He touches his hand to the tree, where color has started to bleed down the trunk ]

If you decide you hate an influence for yourself, then it is your choice to make; if you decide one branch or another may stay, then I do not see why that is not a feeling worth protecting. Even if you may face danger for it.

[ Turning back to Sol, as he continues. ]

Death is not the worst of all possibilities. Survival presents us with the possibility of rot and decay, where a noble death may stymie that. A martyr's life is extended by the glory of his death, the memory made indelible so long as his cause was just. To become one of the crowd, keeping your head down and wallowing in the muck, too fearful to lift it up is no life at all. Even I, who continue to live long past the day I should have perished, do not live on solely for the sake of breathing alone.

[ He holds a hand out to Sol ]

Why do you do this, Sol?