A Letter

[unefille]

Dear X,

To say I struggle with authenticity would be an understatement. The closest I get toward emotional vulnerability and that bizarre thing called sharing is a form of emotional exhibitionism -- it seems that no matter how hard I try to let someone in, all I end up doing is just pulling all my shit out and making it a spectacle. A monument of some kind. I understand the frustration of trying to get closer to someone who can't stop performing for everyone. It's not that I don't want to, but that I don't know how to. Making it a performance makes it safe, creates a distance between me and the subject of the performance. I'm at my best when I'm performing, because, safe in that 'this is just for show' net, I can finally stop holding myself together, stop selecting the 'appropriate' response and just revel in the uglier emotions I don't want associated with me.

Maybe you realised what was going on that time when I broke down in the nightclub -- I wasn't planning on doing that of course -- not everything I do is premeditated -- but the moment you leaned in and asked me if something was wrong -- I would be lying if I said that everything from that moment on was a genuine response. I was always watching your reaction. It was always under control. It sounds so inhuman, but this is how I am human. There is no level where I am completely acting without any awareness of the affect I am having on you; there is no point when I am not making conscious choices regarding how to continue behaving. I knew exactly what I wanted to happen when I started acting out, breaking things, tearing things apart. I knew exactly what sort of reaction I wanted from you when I drew you in and whispered 'my secrets' to you in the dark. I was performing vulnerability for you -- there was real fear, real vulnerability inside me at that moment, but what you got wasn't the real deal. I couldn't go that far. I gave you a different, altered version and you responded just the way I though you would -- but then something happened that I didn't anticipate: I started crying.

I do surprise myself sometimes and in those moments, I utterly terrify myself. I slip outside of my own control. You see, on the inside, where you can't possibly see, I'm not together at all. I'm completely raw and I know it and I fear it. I'm all nerve-endings and electrical jolts and this swirling cloud of responses. You see me staring out the window, you notice I suddenly fall silent during dinner, you wonder where I am when I sit next to you in a taxi and eyes seem to be staring into the distance and my face an unreadable mask -- I am here, on the inside. I am submerged in that rioting sea and there is nothing here which can be communicated -- there is no experience I can share with you because nothing here is linear, nothing here approximates a shape or even the shadow of something which I can at least trace with words; everything is in revolt, there is no order, much less a simplicity of experience which I can convey in words and gestures. I'm aware of the dichotomy of what you see and what I know and I can't break that down because how terrifying would that be? Nothing makes sense here and yet in life, we have to make sense and so in taking small trace elements of my 'authentic self' (which is not so much a self at all, but a roaring, boiling sea, unbounded and never still), both of us (the performer and the audience) get to interact with something bounded, something rational, something defined.

What am I trying to say? Maybe just this: those first tears were real. Unexpected and surprising. What came after wasn't -- that became a performance, studied for the effect I wanted to produce in you. Oh, it was still real though. The real and artificial are not so easily distinguished. Before I do something, before I write it or speak it or act it out, I often rehearse it several times in my head. Even now I'm re-reading my words, rephrasing them in my head, asking myself just what it is I want to convey to you and how best to do so. Even now I'm thinking about what I want you to know of me, what is this picture of me I want to build in your head, what can I not let you know, what must I (MUST, you see -- an imperative) mislead you about, what must I distort or misrepresent, or should I say, re-represent? But I don't want you to dismiss everything I do and am because of this -- you can't dismiss everything because of this studied process, because the impulse to tell you this, the impulse to write at all -- this impulse surprises me, much like those tears surprised me.

I feel torn between self-preservation and self-destruction. I want to reach you, the 'I' inside and not the 'I' produced, but I cannot reach you without destroying the 'I' produced (which holds me together). This is the closest I can let you come for now. Notice the anonymity of this letter to you, notice its public posting. I realise that I'm doing it again -- I'm taking something private (what I want to communicate to you, a designated individual with a name) and making it public -- I'm pushing you away until you're part of the audience to a message board posting, which is a faceless, nameless mass. Trust me, I lament this instinct of mine, I hate it, I loathe it and yet, I cannot be without it. I'm making you indistinguishable from everyone else; I'm could be saying you are just an audience for me -- YOU are not significant, what is significant is that you watch me; you are just a face in the crowd and I sing and dance for you because your eyes are on me. I say this with my actions, I know -- yet, this is what I want you to know: I want YOUR eyes on me, not just anyone's. They can look and I am indifferent to them, but I am hoping that YOU are looking. I produce myself so that you will look, that your eyes will fall upon me and watch me. When all is said and done, that is all I can really offer you: the knowledge that I am aware of you gaze, I am your performer, and I invent myself for you. Your gaze eclipses them all.

(I just needed to get that off my chest and into writing.)

[strrrng]

<3. seriously.

[07490]

WOW, this let me to tears, we need to talk.

[Satan]

I have read some of Unefille's writings. While I disagree with much of her content, I do not intend to attack Unefille's opinions, only to offer my own viewpoints. Although not without overlap and simplification, I plan to identify three primary positions on Unefille's put-downs. I acknowledge that I have not accounted for all possible viewpoints within the parameters of these three positions. Nevertheless, Unefille spouts a lot of heartache whenever she wants to make a point. She then subjectively interprets that heartache to support her shell games while ignoring the fact that her methods are much subtler now than ever before. It is more adept at hidden mind control and its techniques of social brainwash are much more appealingly streamlined and homogenized.

I have given this issue a great deal of thought, and I now have a strong conviction that you may be wondering why salacious hellions latch onto Unefille's positions. It's because people of that nature need to have rhetoric and dogma to recite during times of stress in order to cope. That's also why there is unequivocally a gutless dimension to Unefille's programs of Gleichschaltung. Or, if "gutless" is too narrow of a term, perhaps you'd prefer "inarticulate". In any case, Unefille keeps saying that hanging out with noxious deadbeats is a wonderful, culturally enriching experience. Isn't that claim getting a little shopworn? I mean, I can say one thing about it. It understands better than any of us that psychological impact is paramount—not facts, not anybody's principles, not right and wrong. I'm not suggesting that we behave likewise. I'm suggesting only that one of the great mysteries of modern life is, Does Unefille realize it's more insolent than a flagitious peculator? The answer has two parts to it. The first part regards the manner in which many of our present-day sufferings are the consequence of the garrulous relationship between Unefille and the worst sorts of lawless skinflints there are. The second part of the answer is focused on the the way that Unefille doesn't want to acknowledge that her people are too impuissant to stand up to it. In fact, Unefille would rather block all discussion on the subject. I suppose that's because the purpose of this letter is far greater than to prove to you how ruthless and fickle it has become. The purpose of this letter is to get you to start thinking for yourself, to start thinking about how its two-faced campaigns of malice and malignity have caused damnable snobs to descend upon us like a swarm of locusts, destroying our moral fiber. Help me open students' eyes, minds, hearts, and souls to the world around them. Join your hands with mine in this, the greatest cause of our time.

[ArchonAlarion]

I would like to take a moment to stop Unefille's encroachments on our heritage. Those readers of brittle disposition might do well to await a ride on the next emotionally indulgent transport; this one is scheduled nonstop over rocky roads. As soon as you're strapped in I'll announce something to the effect of how I indubitably dislike Unefille. Likes or dislikes, however, are irrelevant to observed facts, such as that the biggest supporters of Unefille's dim-witted zingers are unpleasant wiseacres and phlegmatic anthropophagi. A secondary class of ardent supporters consists of ladies of elastic virtue and cosmopolitan tendencies to whom such things afford a decent excuse for displaying their fascinations at their open windows.

Unefille can't help it; she just loves to waste everyone else's time. In this land which has befriended mephitic televangelists, she has conspired, plotted, undermined, prostituted, and corrupted, and—hiding to this hour behind the braver screen of deluded spielers—dares to contrive and scheme the death of every principle that has protected her. As we all know, this is typical of the kind of noise she enjoys making. But there I go again, claiming that her proposed social programs are geared toward the continuation of social stratification under the rubric of "tradition". Funny, that was the same term that Unefille's acolytes once used to add insult to injury. I am a law-and-order kind of person. I hate to see crimes go unpunished. That's why I indeed hope that Unefille serves a long prison term for her illegal attempts to commit senseless acts of violence against anyone daring to challenge her mad taradiddles.

If I had my druthers, Unefille would never have had the opportunity to make mountains out of molehills. As it stands, Unefille's vitriolic grievances place our children at imminent risk of serious harm. News of this deviousness must spread like wildfire if we are ever to offer a framework for discussion so that we can more quickly reach a consensus. It should be intuitively obvious even to the most casual observer that I want to see all of us working together to reach out to the poor, the marginalized, and those unfortunate enough to have been labeled as noisome by Unefille's propaganda machine. Yes, this is an idealistic approach to actualizing our restorative goals. Nevertheless, you should realize that Unefille says it is within her legal right to rifle, pillage, plunder, and loot. Whether or not she indeed has such a right, if Unefille can overawe and befuddle a sufficient number of prominent individuals then it will become virtually impossible for anyone to push a consistent vision that responds to most people's growing fears about sneaky scum.

Unefille is chomping at the bit for a chance to saddle the economy with crippling debt, which is another way of saying that she would swear on a stack of Bibles that she can be trusted to judge the rest of the world from a unique perch of pure wisdom. (Note the heroic restraint stopping me from saying that Unefille's confreres are the carrion birds of humanity.) She's more than obscene. Unefille's mega-obscene. In fact, to understand just how obscene she is, you first need to realize that if my own experience has taught me anything, it's that we must direct your attention in some detail to the vast and irreparable calamity brought upon us by Unefille. Those who claim otherwise do so only to justify their own aberrant ravings. One of the things I find quite interesting is listening to other people's takes on things. For instance, I recently overheard some folks remark that Unefille's behavior might be different if she were told that she should be in better control of her hormones. Of course, as far as Unefille's concerned, this fact will fall into the category of, "My mind is made up; don't confuse me with the facts." That's why I'm telling you that the reason she wants to discredit and intimidate the opposition is that she's completely hypersensitive. If you believe you have another explanation for her obdurate, repressive behavior, then please write and tell me about it.

Why does Unefille want to take over society's eyes, ears, mind, and spirit? Because a stockpile of Unefille quotes favoring communism could fill a junkyard. That's not the only reason, of course, but I'll get to the other reasons later. I predict that within a short period of time, people will generally agree that she is unable to deal with a world populated by human beings. This is a prediction that will not be true in all cases but it is expected to become more common as time passes. Unfortunately, I can already see the response to this letter. Someone, possibly Unefille herself or one of her devotees, will write an exploitative piece about how unrealistic I am. If that's the case, then so be it. What I just wrote sorely needed to be written.

[Satan]

Unefille are you on LiveJournal?

[jessica129]

I really liked this, Unfille

[strrrng]

I really liked this, Unfille

Same. Too bad these miscreants had to mock it

[marooned]

Cleverly hidden within Unefille's letter, for added incentive to read onward, is one lie. Not a lie of statistical or grammatical error but a ludicrous falsehood at once so absurd as to strike the reader as an insult to human intelligence and yet so besotted as to convince the reader that Unefille's lapdogs are more determined than most lamebrained, manipulative scum. To get right down to it, Unefille's friends in their high places resist seeing that she cares for them only in the same way that fleas care about dogs. This upper echelon resists seeing this cold back-stabbing reality because to see it, to examine it, to think about it and draw conclusions from it is to embrace diversity. And when you're a lapdog of Unefille, that is the same thing as self-destruction.

~I cannot self-terminate.~

Knowledge is the key that unlocks the shackles of bondage. That's why it's important for you to know that Unefille should think about how her offhand remarks lead flippant desperados to change children's values from those taught in the home to those considered chic by what I call pestiferous, stentorian crybabies. If Unefille doesn't want to think that hard, perhaps she should just keep quiet. In the past, I've thought that her grandiose promises of plenty for each have yielded grinding poverty for all. Were I to make such a generalization now it would contain a few "weasel words" -- an escape hatch or that indispensable cliche that crime unpunished is crime rewarded. But because besides being thoroughly offensive and abusive, her whinges are seriously defamatory, I am not ready to retract my conviction or to recant error. The objection may still be raised that Unefille's equivocations won't be used for political retribution. At first glance this sounds almost believable yet the following must be borne in mind: If everyone does their own, small (insignificant) part, together we can present another paradigm in opposition to Unefille's disagreeable threats. Oh she cloaks them in intellectual rhetoric, but do not be deceived: they are threats, clear as the sun burning a hole in your iris.

It is clear from what I have already written that I'm trying to tell you that Unefille's barbaric magic-bullet explanations prevent people from getting their real work done. This world of facades and faces she presents is one where we just look like we're working. News of this deviousness must spread like unkempt flames if we are ever to stick to the facts and offer only those arguments that can be supported by those facts. Unefille's campaigns of malice and malignity are a farraginous amalgam of sexism and ethnocentrism. In view of that, it is not surprising that she oppresses her critics by crushing them, expelling them, pauperizing them, and cutting them off from families and friends. Stated differently, I do not have the time, in one sitting, to go into the long answer as to why conversations with her are no more intellectual than a game of darts at the local pub. But the short answer is that she ignores a breathtaking number of facts, most notably:

Fact: History teaches us that to ignore or dismiss people like HER simply as inimical ingrates can have devastating consequences. It's like mowing the weeds that only propogate their genetic material and come back in an overwhelming tirade of landscaping graffiti.

Fact: The Unefille's latest letter is filled with fabrications, half-truths, innuendo, and guilt by association. She implicates herself by association and that's a diversionary tactic.

Fact: People who believe that Unefille understands the difference between civilization and savagery need to be worked over with an oak table leg and then sentenced to 20 years of hard labor in order to straighten out their thinking.

In addition, Unefille wants to be the one who determines what information we have access to. Yet she is also a big proponent of a particularly slaphappy form of unilateralism. Do you see something wrong with that picture? What I see is that I am reminded of the quote, "Her ability to flap her gums greatly exceeds her cognitive skills." Fish are like that, she is a fish woman. This comment is not as crapulous as it seems because I must admit that I've read only a small fraction of Unefille's writings, and yet I am Oh So Opinionated Nonetheless! (As a well-known aphorism states, it is not necessary to eat all of an apple to learn that it is rotten. She thinks so too, but she does it wrong.) Nevertheless, I've read enough of her writings to know that if you'll allow me a minor dysphemism, statistical details released by a third-party agency indicate that her worshippers explain everything through the lens of Unefille's iconoclastic and ideologically loaded plaints. Or, to phrase that a little more politely, when you tell her cronies, who are legion, that she cites the alleged benefits of autism -- which are mostly unsupported, irrelevant, or distortions of the scientific literature -- to justify forcing people into gas chambers, they begin to get fidgety and their eyes begin to wander. They really don't care enough. They have no interest in hearing that Unefille contends that five nuclear powerplants can power mind-control engines in secret, underground, government facilities.

What is clear is that if you don't think that only the assembled and concentrated might of a national passion rearing up in its strength can establish clear, justifiable definitions of blackguardism and solecism so that you can defend a decision to take action when Unefille's cringers inure us to homicidal allotheism, then you've missed the whole point of this letter (and you clearly didn't read between the lines of HER letter either).

I have a New Year's resolution for Unefille and people like her: They should pick up a book before they jump to the prolix conclusion that freedom must be abolished in order for people to be more secure and comfortable. After hours of sifting through her odious writings I finally realized that Unefille uses obscure words like "scleroticochorioiditis" and "philosophicojuristic" to conceal her agenda, to fill the air with recrimination and rancor.

~double-speak! lies!~

I find that having to process phrases with long words like those makes me feel hoodwinked, inferior, definitely frustrated, and angry. That's why I strive for utmost clarity whenever I explain to others that I'm not very conversant with Unefille's background (and there were no long words in MY letter). To be quite frank, I don't care to be. I already know enough to state with confidence that I shall make every effort, especially in this limited space, to put an end to Unefille's evildoing. And let me tell you, she acts as if she were Queen of the World. This hauteur is astonishing, staggering, and mind-boggling to me. If the corsett that she thrusts upon the world were to be tightened any further, I daresay we would all faint in throngs of sighing!

[unefille]

An Explanatory Note: I was doing some research in bed last night, drinking tea, when something I read (I can't even remember what now) propelled me to write this. X is real, all events documented are real (if very vaguely described) and this monologue is something that's been running through my head in various forms for the last month or two. I hadn't really thought about why this issue was bugging me so much and with such constancy, although I suppose a clue lies in the fact that whilst embroiled with X, I wrote emails to my friends that were almost bleeding in the emotions they conveyed: peaks of exultation and troughs of pain and misery; yet within weeks post-X, even as my friends approached the topic with delicacy and sensitivity, I simply shrugged everything off and said (basically): whatever. I wouldn't describe my behaviour as emotionally avoidant, but more driven by pragmatism: things didn't work out and I had to move on -- anyway, I'm busy and there's no point in reliving the emotional past.

I don't actually feel like I owe X any explanation for anything, so whilst the content of the letter was true, the writing of it was for me and not for him. The reason I can't just call X and tell him all of this is not because I am paralysed by an sense of inertia, fear or emotional cowardice -- as explained above, I cannot say this directly (or at all) because I cannot (or don't want to -- same thing to me) compromise the 'self' that I presented to X and am still presenting to him as long as we remain 'friends'. Barring that one night as documented, my behaviour was always exemplary, calm and self-possessed if mostly emotionally detached; the behaviour of that one night which I did want to explain probably struck him as my most human and vulnerable moment and that would be both true and completely false. It's actually annoying that whilst I'm perfectly capable of detaching from my emotions in the moment, of controlling my emotional affect so completely, I still have to deal with the emotional garbage afterward -- yet I'm pretty resigned to this and even recognise that this, the emotional garbage, the shit leftover, is what makes me more than a machine.

Which leads me to this:

Unefille are you on LiveJournal?

No and I haven't been on LJ for 5 years now. I used to use it as a form of emotional purgatory until I realised that I was as prone to inventing my own drama as I was to documenting it and I was persuaded by some more 'rational' individuals that this was pretty sick and exhibitionist and supposedly 'immature/maladjusted'. However, the immediate aftermath of telling myself to SHUT UP emotionally was pretty much depression, so I guess all the advice about 'making mountains out of molehills -- just stop thinking yourself sad' was pretty fucked up and wrong, anyway.

<3. seriously.

WOW, this let me to tears, we need to talk.

I really liked this, Unfille

<3 guys. And Numbers, if you want to talk, just PM me.


However,

Mercutio, ArchonAlarion and Loki, WTF dudes?! Actually, it's only to Merky and Loki that I want to say 'WTF?!' and simply leave it at that -- ArchonAlarion, I actually felt a great deal of underlying animosity in your writing, which wasn't present with Merky and Loki, however I have never before interacted with you so I'm mostly just inclined to ignore that. I'm surprised that all three of you would simultaneously use such grandiose and superfluous language and amused if my letter genuinely inspired such responses -- it all sounds rather dystopic and 'fire and brimstone'-y (especially given Loki's quotations) in tenor.

[ArchonAlarion]

lol

we used random complaint generators

[unefille]

lol

we used random complaint generators

Ja, but like, complaint generators from 1984 or the X-Men movies, or something? I did think you guys wouldn't actually compose such long responses, but the tenor was just weird. And a cross between a senator and a pastor, with a good of 19th century thrown in.

[marooned]

I didn't know what I was doing, I was trying to communicate with those who preceded me because I found it very odd, so I pasted something off a random (but clearly exciting) website, replacing the name in the document with "Unefille" and changing some things/adding some things here and there, trying also to follow the spirit of those who came before to some extent. There was no malicious intent at all, and I really liked your post, and I wasn't truly trying to be mocking.

[strrrng]

It doesn't matter the intent -- the responses have marred the thread. Unfortunately, it is all too often that such raw passion is over-shadowed; I can't say I would necessarily prefer it otherwise, though.

[ArchonAlarion]

im sorry i marred the thread unefille

[strrrng]

lol fuck you

[ArchonAlarion]

=D

Nah but seriously I do feel kinda like a jerk even if it was worth it.

[Satan]

I make no apologies.

[strrrng]

=D

Nah but seriously I do feel kinda like a jerk even if it was worth it.

lol cool

I make no apologies.

lol, I wouldn't expect anything less (or more) of you, merky

[Exodus]

lol

we used random complaint generators

Looooooooooll, that was quite a mindfuck to read.

[lefty]

I thought it was really very validating. As a lot of interactions have been here. I'm finding its better to feel catharsis then it is to debate with lame deltas etc. hehehehe.


anyway ... i'm a 4w5, but i still feel the similar experience of the tension of being sort of suspended in my intuition vs. very aware of how others feel - i think im more detached than that, but it was just a gorgeous piece of self expression and I find myself feeling as though there is not enough material out there where women express themselves as something not stereotypical or someone who is torn or feels desperate or isn't maternal or is overtly sexual and so on the entire emotional inner life and experience as an animal and human i want more of from women.

that which i cannot express within myself feels a little less burdend...