The prettiest phrase today was "honeyed oblivion".
I went to go see the arena show for Walking With Dinosaurs. This was both a completely amazing and peerless experience for me, and a dire warning of things to come for the rest of the world. The raptor suit armies will be made now. And they will be great and terrible, and I shall rule from within my turret-mounted Utahraptor.
The sound of leather is a true delight. I had missed it so.
I have acquired membership to a 24-hour gym. While I am not yet capable of the full 24 hours, the 3 hours a day (though temporarily every second day, due to other obligations) shall have to do for now. I should probably do less, but it is no longer enough for me to simply become thinner. I have so, so much work to do, and I just need to...
---------
What was I saying?
I have been going through an oddly sedate and dreamlike crisis of identity. Somehow, I failed to feel the appropriate levels of fear, or panic, or whatever would be more typical. More, I simply felt a vague confusion, a little unease likened to leaving something important behind somewhere but being unable to recall what. A flickering, elusive tickle taunting from one of the far rear rooms of the thought-mansion.
It should be noted, for those unversed to the kind of being I am, that 'I' is a difficult thing for me to properly contemplate. What is displayed is, barring certain specific instances and scenarios, a mask of some kind. These masks range from the simple mannerisms borrowed from people and things both real and fictional; all the way up to the very complex pre-made personas of characters I create or appropriate. It needs to be made clear, I am a very different beast from systems, or gestalt entities, though I suppose I can see how some may regard it like a distant cousin. I liken it more to a series of puppets, articulated by the man behind the curtain. None of these masks truly have awareness of their own, though I may talk to them sometimes or imagine what they would say. They are not alive, so to speak.
I haven't made this public before, not out of any particular sense of shame or fear, but simply because it seemed irrelevant. Though, it does bother me that of the few I have disclosed this to before, a majority of that number had taken the information I gave to mean I was a liar, which is not at all the case.
The issue I was dealing with for something like a few months now, was that I now possess a number of masks in the area of a hundred and sixty. It had long passed the point that 'the man behind the curtain' had become forgotten, lost behind the masks. It is unsettling to realise you do not know who you are, or at best, you are becoming splintered in ways you do not wish to be.
I did not feel lost; I have all the stability and security I need, all I could want really. Merely confused, and disoriented. I wondered how long it had been so, like how you may not notice your hair thinning until one day you see a real bald spot in the mirror. And so I was for months, in a languid kind of existential anaesthetised-horror.
Until one night, I was given a new name.
I have many names, though few are still known or used. This new one is special to me, however, as Ledarius was to me once. It had been a long time since I had been named, knowing or not of the weight of tradition and ritual being named holds for me. Going home after the event, being kindly driven through the cold and quiet night, my sleepy mind fielded a yipping howl from somewhere, and I had a small but deeply satisfying epiphany.
None of the masks I have are kept against my will. I have crafted every single one with a keen eye to what I desired from them, and what I could best use. I made them to help me be whatever I needed or wanted to be at any moment: the sharp-eared gentleman with infinite patience and utter command of impulse, the bright-eyed curious creature with the clever hands and quick mind, the sly and smooth-tongued beast that harnesses the predatory centres of the brain to his best advantage, and so many others. They served me well, and do to this day. Each was made or cobbled together to enhance me, to assist me in becoming whatever it was I wanted. Through them I improve, diversify my abilities, temper my raw instinct and impulse into something finer.
I have so many because they work. They work because, whether scratch-built or appropriated, they are reflections of myself. They are reflections of myself because I can perceive how I am and how I wish to be, and adjust accordingly.
I once wished, fervently, to be a shapeshifter. And that is what I have finally become. Having sought and found the greatest shapeshifter several times, it is not a surprise the old trickster rubbed off on me.
I am whatever I wish to be. I am the beast that forms itself. I am the puppet and I am the puppet master. I am no less for my talent, for talent is what it is. I am not wrong, I am not a liar, and I am not something that should have this 'fixed'.
Identity is fluid. There is no identity crisis.
The sound of leather is a true delight. I had missed it so.
I have acquired membership to a 24-hour gym. While I am not yet capable of the full 24 hours, the 3 hours a day (though temporarily every second day, due to other obligations) shall have to do for now. I should probably do less, but it is no longer enough for me to simply become thinner. I have so, so much work to do, and I just need to...
---------
What was I saying?
I have been going through an oddly sedate and dreamlike crisis of identity. Somehow, I failed to feel the appropriate levels of fear, or panic, or whatever would be more typical. More, I simply felt a vague confusion, a little unease likened to leaving something important behind somewhere but being unable to recall what. A flickering, elusive tickle taunting from one of the far rear rooms of the thought-mansion.
It should be noted, for those unversed to the kind of being I am, that 'I' is a difficult thing for me to properly contemplate. What is displayed is, barring certain specific instances and scenarios, a mask of some kind. These masks range from the simple mannerisms borrowed from people and things both real and fictional; all the way up to the very complex pre-made personas of characters I create or appropriate. It needs to be made clear, I am a very different beast from systems, or gestalt entities, though I suppose I can see how some may regard it like a distant cousin. I liken it more to a series of puppets, articulated by the man behind the curtain. None of these masks truly have awareness of their own, though I may talk to them sometimes or imagine what they would say. They are not alive, so to speak.
I haven't made this public before, not out of any particular sense of shame or fear, but simply because it seemed irrelevant. Though, it does bother me that of the few I have disclosed this to before, a majority of that number had taken the information I gave to mean I was a liar, which is not at all the case.
The issue I was dealing with for something like a few months now, was that I now possess a number of masks in the area of a hundred and sixty. It had long passed the point that 'the man behind the curtain' had become forgotten, lost behind the masks. It is unsettling to realise you do not know who you are, or at best, you are becoming splintered in ways you do not wish to be.
I did not feel lost; I have all the stability and security I need, all I could want really. Merely confused, and disoriented. I wondered how long it had been so, like how you may not notice your hair thinning until one day you see a real bald spot in the mirror. And so I was for months, in a languid kind of existential anaesthetised-horror.
Until one night, I was given a new name.
I have many names, though few are still known or used. This new one is special to me, however, as Ledarius was to me once. It had been a long time since I had been named, knowing or not of the weight of tradition and ritual being named holds for me. Going home after the event, being kindly driven through the cold and quiet night, my sleepy mind fielded a yipping howl from somewhere, and I had a small but deeply satisfying epiphany.
None of the masks I have are kept against my will. I have crafted every single one with a keen eye to what I desired from them, and what I could best use. I made them to help me be whatever I needed or wanted to be at any moment: the sharp-eared gentleman with infinite patience and utter command of impulse, the bright-eyed curious creature with the clever hands and quick mind, the sly and smooth-tongued beast that harnesses the predatory centres of the brain to his best advantage, and so many others. They served me well, and do to this day. Each was made or cobbled together to enhance me, to assist me in becoming whatever it was I wanted. Through them I improve, diversify my abilities, temper my raw instinct and impulse into something finer.
I have so many because they work. They work because, whether scratch-built or appropriated, they are reflections of myself. They are reflections of myself because I can perceive how I am and how I wish to be, and adjust accordingly.
I once wished, fervently, to be a shapeshifter. And that is what I have finally become. Having sought and found the greatest shapeshifter several times, it is not a surprise the old trickster rubbed off on me.
I am whatever I wish to be. I am the beast that forms itself. I am the puppet and I am the puppet master. I am no less for my talent, for talent is what it is. I am not wrong, I am not a liar, and I am not something that should have this 'fixed'.
Identity is fluid. There is no identity crisis.