106. Self-hack?

Making it illegible. Ciphertexting to myself. Absolutely certain I won’t have the key. Lacking in special knowledge to reverse the process. Deprived of decryption potential. Thus I write, unreadable. Information so confidential, it’s repudiated the minute it’s formed. That’s always been the protocol.

I must therefore hope that I’m a flawed system, and can be broken. Otherwise, deafening silences will remain untouched, intact, undiscussed. And me, ignorant – except for that single piece of intuitive understanding: Nothing can be kept secret which has already been revealed. But it’s the chicken-and-egg problem: The one about constantly scrambling the eggs, always about chickening out.

Laolao

105. Golden ratio(nal)

Where is it? Where do I go? Where do I stay? Where is it that I bang my head on it? To say it blew my mind too.

Oxygen has a blue tint. And somebody says the sky is blue for the same reason, but I don’t think so. Diffraction may not have anything to do with the sky.

With respect to sunlight, what would answers be like at sunset?

Mendelbrot shapes, in solid colors, blue being an example. Looping factors connecting all into one giant pattern. It goes on forever. Self-referential. Perhaps a rare proof of irrationality. Golden spirals and fast calculations. Industrial-strength computational devices running after fractals, the seeds of flowers, or even brownish pine cones forgotten on the side of a road.

My head aches. It has now gone through enough iterations to realize that it contains hidden within itself, somewhere, somehow, every single bit of information that is possible.

But where is it? Where do I go? Where do I stay? Where is it that I bang my head on it. Hyper-lucid? Some of my thoughts organic; others, inorganic.

A golden ratio operating as a universal law hindering my precious inner balance. Never having strived for spiritual ideals. Just geometric ones. A triangle, yes. On my good days, a pyramid. Always Egyptian.

Laolao

104. Falling

Some think something may be out there. Perhaps way out there, on the fringes of creation. Where our current cosmological horizon lies; and then there’s a ravine. Far beyond the known universe. With chunks of matter losing their balance, orbiting nothing.

In any direction from every location, you can view my properties. They look the same, stay the same. Uniformly improbable. My being an isotropic person, splashed across the heavens. Unimpeded. Of parochial significance. In a void devoid of universal meaning. Going over the edge of origins and evolution. Heading side-ways, downward, upward - without control. Detached. Being the same in every direction.

I hear it’s never the fall that hurts, but its sudden stop.

Laolao

103. Infinite slowness

Don’t you feel it too? That time may soon vanish, if it hasn’t already done so. Everyone’s world fooled into thinking the universe is expanding at glorified accelerating rates, galaxies thought to be pulled apart by the darkest matters that can be. The law of gravity quickly becoming an oppressive law of silence. For nobody talks. No one notices. On a cosmic scale, imperceptible.

Lights from supernovae tracking the course of our life stories. Billions of years to practice how to slow the mind down until hell freezes over. A static moment for all of us. Like when clocks had not yet been invented. Infinite degrees of stillness.

I had meant to develop a perturbation theory that would have saved us all, a time-independent explanation. A way to measure emotional disturbances, all the artifacts of our consciousness. I had hoped to have a mission. To be a totally devoted missionary. I thought I had it in me. To come up with a system of ideas that would have accounted for the time that went missing. A set of principles as the basis of time’s progressive disappearance. I really had meant to be the one capable of justifying what’s supposed to happen. I did believe I could do it. To come up with a theorem that would have encompassed all the demonstrations proving time is not a constant.

If time has indeed emerged from the Big Bang, it can, you see, disappear. It could possess an intrinsic, eternal, unchanging moment when perception of space becomes dominant. Impossible to alter.

As I look into the past, I realize time definitely moves faster in that direction. But if I look towards the future, mine, I can’t see. Except for an unmovable place where I exist, within myself, transfixed.

What if the speed of light was found to be variable too? What would it do to all the images, their pigments, the shadows, their proportions? The images we entertain about ourselves and others? The images we have of our perception of time? Can I be the theoretician dismantling our ideology regarding all of this, can I? Can I? Be the one taking snapshots of the doctrines we hold about the progress of our existence, when in fact past, present, future are not a whole. Be the one showing you that dimensions can switch over?

I agree, we do seem to be traveling away from each other faster and faster. But it’s a false impression. Can I be the one articulating the hypothesis? That we are, in fact, motionless. Our souls. Our supposed grandeur. Our technological advances. We are the paradigm of successful immobility. We are the presence of matter that caused time to decelerate. And brake/break.

Time is not physical. We are. Time has no molecules, no particles. It has no waves. It only exists as long as movements do. The speed of time occurs while objects move. The current perception of time is therefore relative, but we don't have anything external to compare it to. Time might have collapsed so much that everything, from that perspective, does indeed seem to go so, so terribly fast. Ourselves first, at the top of the line. Evolving with stupendous velocity. As we proceed slower than we did in the past, all, and I mean all looks like it’s rushing by at an incredible pace.

I thus remain under the impression that it took me an enormous amount of time to get to you. To create you. To tackle the greatest cosmological mystery of all. You have acted, therefore, as an ultimate, powerful point of reference, creating time throughout my life, giving me the presentiment I'll always observe differences. Changes in quantities and qualities. Curving, then wrapping my mind around nicely explainable relations to both the space we occupy and the time we're occupied.

Yes, if I can wait an infinite amount of non-time for all of you, of us to happen, something is bound to happen. And we would continue to think we’re moving as if nothing had happened.

True, who needs to know that for non-accelerating objects, there must be reference frames that also have zero velocity?

Anyway, now you see how I feel when for too long we’re far apart. A strong issue of escalating brain-pain stretching time into a protracted, unbearable connotation.

Laolao

102. Electronic cortex

I copy myself, immersed in degrees, layers of separation, and wonder right away whether I can be considered the same as the original me. And will minds identical to mine ultimately emerge, reconstructions elsewhere, other embodiments, somehow a new substrate to my image? Can I, then, communicate with myself? Neuron-by-neuron? And will the pronoun “I” be the ultimate fixed point for all my replicated identities?

I close my eyes and I see them: My future machines. Colossal knowledge scanning, digitalizing a human profile, my brain the biological child of an artificial intelligence. Genetic data encoded within a virtual reality.

I close my eyes and I feel it: Personalities evolving inside endless online spaces, outsourcing love and pain to external secondary systems made with the dust of flesh, clouds of upgraded representations of who we claim to be.

Memory pixels allowing avatars of myself to role-play alternate individualities. Neuromorphing software to capture my complete state of mind. Uploading exabytes of existential questions for my progeny to answer.

My physical experiences of the world reproduced, and then getting lost - a lack of interest from meta-search engines eye-tracking nothing else but meaningful fantasy platforms.

Will they get confused, permutated, the different people I can be? Incorporeal souls caught in cybernetic ecosystems, masses of programmed ideas and concepts reaching maturity as computer-generated life-forms, the databases of our ethereal properties having acquired self-transformative powers.

I promise. I will sacrifice primary consciousness for a user-generated environment. I will open a can of computer worms. I will hack and counter-hack clusters of differences all made of silicon. I will reverse-engineer a lifetime’s worth of knowledge. I promise. I will be born and contribute to problem-solving from day one. With a keyboard, I will maintain poetic illusions about a singular self whiling away its time.

I will reproduce my mammalian brain a trillion times. I promise. It will not be possible to distinguish this sudden amplitude from the presence of magic.

There will be, I promise, no signs of alien life in any of my futuristic realities, no cyborgs, only self-directed evolution. Only a colonized imagination, the painstaking process of data analysis preparing for anomie, and, of course, post-human changes.

Help me baby. Sometimes, I’m taken straight to the binary frontier of what’s possible. Where I instantly evaporate, somewhere, on my way from zero to one.


Laolao

101. VPN

I’ll soon be going back to Beijing. I’m doing so with a VPN installed on my laptop, hoping that with encryption I’ll be able to access my blog. If I can’t, I’ll try to move it elsewhere, and, of course, I'll keep writing to you.

Laolao

100. Canada

I’m in Canada, the land I’ve escaped from everyday for the past 11 years. A constant conscious effort, pulling myself away, extirpating my soul, my guilt, backing out a millimeter at a time, all energies into that specific persistent motion that running away constitutes.

But then, here I am now, under a pure blue sky, children and grandchildren busying themselves around me while I watch the same Sun as in Beijing.

This is what I wanted, to flee and come back, to sit in peace at the sound of leaves brushed by a light breeze, the little feet of kids marking the beat, birds and planes flying in mysterious patterns over my head. My voice finally quieting down, unheard, its tones almost invisible.

I wash the dishes and the cling-clang of the cups and plates summarizes what I’ve got to say. The splashes of water as I mop the floor stand as decent punctuation. The sound of the dryer for the laundry making long rotating sentences, tumbling up and down like lyrics I could have invented.

I sew buttons like important words awaiting to be traced on paper, fixed for a purpose, useful and appreciated. I handle the broom the way I handle myself, made for something, well defined in the dictionaries of all the languages that can be. I soak a shirt because of a stain, careful to clean my ideas by the same occasion. I stretch the sheets over the beds, flattening creases with two hands, for I do not wish any bumps or crevasses during my stay. Sometimes, clichés are the way to go.

This is time. These are hours I’m made to understand. An involvement with things that matter very much in the end.

This is a type of time I can definitely count on, which can remain anchored in the body, making itself be touched in all its height and width. Time I can measure using my fingers when they turn the wooden spoon in the spaghetti sauce or the oatmeal. A time I relate to, that has the smell of strawberries and sugar with a dash of thick cream.

This is the time I need, one for brushing and braiding your hair, fancy colored elastics to hold them in place. Specks of time to pick up your toys left in the hallway. Bright plastic shapes reminders of games and laughter, of evenings spent building Lego houses, and tickling you.

This is what I mean by time, drops of moments to add soap in the washing machine where your clothes float. The shape of towels awaiting to dry you by the swimming pool, the walks to the park where I’ll push the swing high and fast while you shout “Again, again!”

Indeed, I’m back for a short while, entirely back, running behind you, afraid you’ll fall and hurt your knee, holding your hand to cross the streets, wiping your face full of ice-cream, or holding a Kleenex to help you blow your nose.

I have now all the time in the world.

Let’s empty the garbage cans, clean the kitchen counters, put the groceries away in the cupboards and fridge. Lets rinse tomatoes, or peel peaches, prepare a bowl of blueberries, or unwrap and cut some cheese. Lets add some salt to the soup and crumble crackers, stir pasta in boiling water, or toast fresh bagels. Lets watch marinated kebabs roast on the barbecue. Dip French fries in a mixture of mayonnaise and ketchup. Lets answer the phone and say hello. Read the morning newspaper, and set the table. Lets hear footsteps and awakening voices as the morning coffee brews. Climb the stairs, out of breath, to get your slippers, a T-shirt, an extra diaper.

Time devoted to cartoons on TV if it rains, or to watching flowers bloom in the garden, finding a name we all agree on for their unusual kind of purple. Of course, seeing animal shapes in the white puffy clouds. Or noticing stars at night. The dew on the wide rhubarb leaves as the sun rises, dandelions you pick for a bouquet.

All of that time, I know, and I know it well. Catching seconds suspended around my head to make them mine, able to rephrase different parts of the day, to even read myself back and recognize a signature.

Hear the wind meet the trees, gently rocking branches. Hear, hear. There are cars moving along. The vibrations of engines reaching the front porch. Lets open all the windows and their bright white curtains to allow the chipping of birds, the buzzing of flies, the slamming of car doors tell us what time it is for us, arranging our routines around the tangibility of household chores. Recurrent gestures, the narrow movements of familiar objects like dresses and pants drying outside on a rope, blue pins to hold them, sleeves flapping against the fence.

You’re improvising a tent with pillows and blankets. I open the parasol. Together, we water the basil, the parsley, and the lilac tree. I open the doors to let you in or out. I pay attention to voices and wonder whether there’s a hidden meaning I should catch the same way I grab all the time I can hold in my arms all at once.

The summer was, therefore, an ideal moment to come back. To perform a multitude of small tasks. To reply present whenever I show up. To accompany all of you in your adulthood and childhood, having at last gone so far away that, in a spherical world, I return to where I started. The place where I cannot go any further. The greatest distance from the beginning being itself, only separated by lots of time, by what’s required for realization to fully come about, pouring a glass of apple juice, or chopping a banana to put on your toast, zipping up your sweater while laughing at your jokes.

I become someone you know, wrapped in the fabric of days and weeks, serving some yogurt with fruits and then, washing the bowls. Waiting for your naps to end. I’ll answer the door and your questions. I’ll sing if you ask me too. And as I sit to contemplate the allures all that time has now taken, I feel pride and satisfaction. I’ll throw the red ball in your direction, blow soap bubbles, write on the sidewalk with chalk time and time again, to make it stay a bit longer, a bit wider and deeper, a bit more material, with a taste of soil, of grass with ants running wild, and grains of sand between your toes.

History is slowly backtracking. It is showing signs of withdrawals. A few hiccups sometimes, perhaps a cramp here and there, a tenth of a second for those resilient manifestations of panic, that’s all. Nothing more. I think it is finally leaving me, accepting to eventually set me free. History allowing me more and more to be contemporary to myself, there in the present, for it is so rare to meet oneself in that evanescent point in time. One is always either focused on the future, or hung up on the past. But to get a glimpse at who one is right now is exceptional, I think.

It only happens through simple, domestic gestures, where a sense of being matches the trajectory of hands ironing clothes, or pouring a glass of chocolate milk. This is when I know best who and where I am, and what precise tasks understanding has later to perform.

In such instances, the letters of the alphabet fall into place, gifted with a clear purpose. Time is no longer an entangled line, just a solid point on which to proudly stand, dusting shelves, rubbing a sink, taking meat out of the freezer for today’s lunch.

I find the roaring of the neighbor’s land-mower reassuring, like a grip into reality. Distant voices from the street, or the howl of a truck driving by like an auditory tapestry able to contain me, delineating a place into which I can safely move, without incidents or accidents, without fear of dilution. Making the beds, unfolding the tablecloth, all activities preventing sinking. A firm ground for my tiny thoughts, their joy expanding all the way to the extremities of the second where the entire world happens, with me in it, perfectly synchronized.

I am here, now, with a rag, a dishcloth. Or sitting outside sipping iced-tea. Watching over you. I am on that chair, on that sidewalk. I am turning on the hose to water the roses. I know why I am here. And know what ‘now’ looks and feels like.

In a way, this is what I expect from love, and how I view its gift. A strong location for the present, being on the same plane of existence as you all are, an encompassing appropriateness and straightforward satisfaction filling the cracks in my head, holding the pieces together. Tight and clean. Reliable surfaces. Tasting ham baked in maple syrup, boiling eggs for your breakfast, and listening to you giggle your mouth full.

It is fine to grow old, dear. So fine and softly warm. A time to fully be, each minute I encounter while fastening your sandals or turning the TV off, a wet facecloth to wipe your cheeks, mashing potatoes and carrots, finding a blanket if you shiver, bedtime stories and a few lullabies.

Laolao

99. A covert operation

In a few minutes, you might think my tone gets cruel and heartless. Depicting without nuances a world that will look unilaterally detestable. And you will probably tell yourself: Things can never be that negative. That uniformly bad. Laolao is certainly blowing everything out of proportion, stuck to subjectivity and gloominess, bad faith having become her sole yard stick.

But to clarify the points I have in mind, I must, throughout this, indeed, one-sided narrative, insist on being mean, and self-centered, even pitiless. It will be because I am truly such a person. To approach my topic, there’s no other way I know of, but to focus on my primitive habits.

I’ve been wanting to take you there for a while now, so that you can have an idea where the women in our family come from. Ultimately, so that you can leave, for there is no other survival option. You need to understand that history at a younger age than I did, to give yourself plenty of time.

Lets get down to it: I’m about to show the aspect of my true Self that is ossified. That doesn’t feel anything, that doesn’t know love. That does not even care. The fossil of an embryo, for this is what remains. The rest is a construction, an afterthought, the a posteriori imitation of a person.

I’m also aware that everything I’ll say in this story will appear grotesque and ridiculous. It will be because the story is grotesque and ridiculous. No way around that either.

Don’t bother looking for a proof. Don’t say you’ll put aside what Laolao tells you today until you can validate her account. There’s no proof. There’s no available authentication process. This story has only known the women with whom I grew up with. It has systematically kept everyone else at bay.

These women, they’re not even aware the story exists, for it is in their nature not to recognize. Asking them would only result in forceful rebuttals.

Denial is the cornerstone of this story. Except for this: These women would immediately identify me, that’s for sure, but not themselves, of course. Using this partial acknowledgement to capture you in their net.

It would mean – at least, try to consider it - that the plot of the story makes sense, and is still operational. But once a captive, you wouldn’t know it. It would be the proof you seek, although a useless one for you wouldn’t be able to realize how caught you are.

So no need to ask around. Here’s what you would hear: That I’m biased, ungrateful, and disloyal. Lots of appointments with shrinks since childhood to support that. You would also be told that I’ve always been like that. But it wouldn’t matter much: In the end, you would hear that my perception, as troubled and intense as it might be, cannot tarnish the positive imprint these women have left here and there throughout their edifying life.

My account, so subjective and critical (I admit it), would not alter any of the grandiose outcomes these women have prompted since birth. It would not change anything to their stature and prowess, nor diminish any of their capabilities. It wouldn’t succeed either in trivializing their suffering. For we are all convinced in this family that our agony is a unique form of hyper-sensitivity, qualifying us as remarkable beings.

Be cautious, this story is about the essence of falsehood, its constant practice, its complete hold over personalities. It’s about chronic deception and fabrication. About people who were themselves pieces of fiction to start with. Therefore, the story can never sound true, reliable and honest. Its basis and material are found in fraud and illusions. And since I am an intrinsic part of the story, I use what’s at my disposal to draw the picture: a Machiavellian, unscrupulous tendency to twist things in one’s favor. An ineluctable, predetermined approach distinctive of our family’s communication strategy. And this is how, in that consistency, you should evaluate my story’s veracity.

It essentially has to do with abuse. Up to now, we’ve been unforthcoming about what has been done to us, and then, refined and reproduced by us. We’ve accomplished much more in the field of abuse than previous generations. We used our legacy well. Abuse crystallized in our midst. Fixing us beyond repair in a sphere of perpetual desecration.

Mistreatment was not an activity, not an invasion, an act from the outside. It was who we were. It could not be amputated, not even treated. It was our nucleus. It gave us life. It made life real for us. It made us real to ourselves.

We never fathomed there could be another way to live. While measuring our own importance against that of others, we only had this reference, leading us to believe we held the top positions we abundantly fantasized.

We even thought everybody was woven with abuse. A norm. We projected our condition unto the world, because, ourselves, we were projections. Not individuals. But a small tightly woven communal entity of codependences, glued together by abuse, each one of us relying on the harm done by one among us for the laudable purpose of asserting our existence.

We had roles, functions, not a life per say. Choices were narrow: You could be the thesis or the antithesis. Everyday was the same. The setting never changed. We remained day in, day out, pure inventions of our sickness, the produce of our own deviant fabrications. In fact, it was an industry. We gauged productivity in terms of output minus cost to our self-esteem.

It is within that global abuse that I get the words needed for this story. They’re the bolts and screws holding the torture machines together.

You’ll soon notice there are only two emotions present in the story, for we never experienced any other, just degrees of rage (that we’d identified with ‘dislikes’), and obsessions (that we mistook for manifestations of ‘love’). Remember: It is from within that place that I talk, for it has created me, entirely shaped me. Hence the airs of phoniness, the mood of subterfuge, the sense of cheating, the falsehood atmosphere hanging over my version of events. Again, view these as signs that the bottom-line of my narrative might be sound and consistent.

Don’t expect accuracy, details, not even facts. I’m unable to convey precision and transparency. It’s all opaque down here. Truth is unknown in that story. It never once made an appearance among the patterns in place all these years. I can only show you falsification tactics by demonstrating in real-time those fine techniques that were ours.

I can hint at many disguises though, for of course they fit me too, the many costumes worn by self-servicing goodness, those borrowed by fake generosity, the allures of victimization, imagined pain, the impersonation of martyrdom. I can articulate how self-sacrifice manages to conceal egotism. How tears are strictly a camouflage for indifference. How an expression such as ‘years of experience’ is a pseudonym for a static immaturity.

Despite my desire to share everything with you, I certainly cannot be frank or candid, I cannot pretend there’s a naked authenticity awaiting us somewhere in the chapters of my memory.

The torturous paths of my thoughts can only exemplify the extent of these deformations I want to show you.

It’s in all my faux pas that you can see our peregrination over and over our own centers. Trampling on ourselves with idolization. Fixated and fanatical. A sadistic disregard for anything but ourselves, and a remorseless lack of empathy. An amalgam of brutal inclinations. Sometimes transfigured into gestures of care and attention meant to hurt. Erupting like a blow, and an all-encompassing bruise in repeated attempts to confirm the authenticity of our individuality, and of our body. This is how we showed attachment to one another. Through injuries. Helping each other corroborate our aching state of being.

Do I exaggerate? See it worse than it was? Do I amplify what were only frequent bouts of stubbornness, assertiveness, a massive, but understandable will to develop one’s greatness, I mean here potential?

One could ask: Is it that reprehensible to be impressive? To indeed know we’re worthier than others? What if it’s true? That we are? Plus, isn’t expected that, out of resentment, others would denounce us for our incredible potential?

What if they were really blocking our righteous path, what if there were no other alternative than to devalue these opponents, all the way to extinction? Why were they standing there, anyway? See how responsibility can easily be shifted and renamed.

What if omnipotence is possible, and we’re the ones chosen for that privilege? Can anyone provide evidence to the contrary? And all these enemies we had, that multitude devoured by jealousy, isn’t it normal they should envy us? And that we had to protect ourselves? We would have been fools not to.

Am I making this up? Am I confusing natural personality traits that just happen to be magnificent and powerful with the mirage produced by this contorted mind of mine?

Would I be erring when I say our feelings were mere imitations? Because we did scream, bleed, devastated by horrors. We cramped, and felt profound distress. It was genuine. Our fear was as monumental as our belief in our almightiness was. We even have plenty of scars on exhibition to confirm our pain. Actually, not many people have that many marks.

Is this hyperbolism? People never could understand us. Much less appreciate us. They weren’t equipped to do so. Our dramas too complex and sophisticated. Beyond the grasp of comprehension. There’s a little touch of divine, here, see.

This is why when some people profess to have some knowledge about us, we know they’re idiots.

Is it delirium to claim we blended hate and fear into overreactions, so muscular that they defined our character? That we always responded with overwhelming force whenever threatened? But… isn’t customary to safeguard one’s integrity? To do all we can to survive? Particularly when we’re better than others.

I hear some blame. Who blames us? Who is this? Who are you? Do reveal yourself! Better, don’t. You wouldn’t survive. That’s how commanding and fierce we are. You wouldn’t last a minute. Run. Leave us untouched and undefeated.

I might really be sick in the head, you know, transferring on my surroundings all my symptoms. Can my idiosyncrasy be the cause of misinterpretations? But what does idiosyncrasy refer to? By definition, it’s what makes me unique? Special? Different? So, so notable. Again, trapped in the circular reflections of vanity, the very engine that kept us alive.

After all, I’m the one in constant need of a cure. Since infancy, causing problems. Still today, see, trying to move against the flow of our glorious course, never happy, never satisfied. Stubbornly declining what our constitution entitles us to. Filled with malice, harboring a disruptive nature. The renegade. My outpour today so in line with well-publicized behavioral issues.

That’s indeed concrete, don’t doubt that for an instant. I’m providing all the substantiation needed to discredit my own allegations. Shooting myself in the foot, one would say. Like I’ve always done. Just to annoy others. The ace of sabotage. On purpose, flunking where others excelled simply to ruin the congratulation party. As if I was born with the mandate to tarnish all that’s around me. Why couldn’t I simply be great? And nicely follow the trends set out by our special destiny?

Yes, I was and remain the incarnation of irritation itself. The origin of vexations, fomenting displeasure as a hobby. Busy spoiling adulation ceremonies. The constant reminder that this world, our world, is far from perfect. Unable to grasp the basics of pride and satisfaction. Obstinate. Eminently fallible. No sense of honor. A vulgar provocateur, dirtying the family’s temple, throwing in disarray the praise rituals constantly put into motion, for we really had no other pastime.

Destructive Laolao, just out to make trouble, framing others so that they’ll suffer more than her. Gesticulating, so out of sync, hijacking attention away from those who genuinely deserve it. Throwing neurotic rocks in the pond of positive self-assessments, she’s the ripples distorting facts, changing the view, uglifying what took a lifetime to shape. She should have stayed longer at the hospital. Cumulating those three years wasn’t enough.

On my part, isn’t it conceit too, my belief that I created so many problems for others, and all by myself?

An absolute self-centeredness when I see myself capable of wrecking elation-prone spirits? Isn't it another kind of narcissism? The sort that is hostile, that objects, finding energy and motivation in disputes. The opposite side, but still very much part of the issue.

Yes, they wouldn’t have figured out the irrevocability of their rights, if it hadn’t been for my permanent wrongs. They wouldn’t have had so much light if it hadn’t been for my dark aspects. They wouldn’t have been able to become so righteous if I hadn’t been in perpetual need for corrections. They wouldn’t have loved their life with such suave intensity, if it weren’t for the threats I posed.

My imperfections had a mission: to stress how dissimilar we were. Reassuring them, especially their conclusion that the vision they had of themselves was impeccable. My deranged outpours a necessity: Through them, they apprehended how virtuous they were, treasuring even more their own irreproachable conduct.

I was therefore essential, not that they would thank me for it, you know. They used me to insufflate a new vigor into their sense of accomplishment. I tell you, they did require maintenance, these ladies.

As a vital mirror image, I had, of course, to be of a reversed structure. That was my job. They couldn’t pretend to be strong unless I accepted my weaknesses They certainly wouldn’t have been able to convince themselves they were sane if I, simultaneously, had tried to do the same. In the end, it gave me leverage. I deliriously came to believe I could control emotional patterns.

One might say they wouldn’t have had ears, if I hadn’t been there shouting. They wouldn’t have talked with cohesion if I hadn’t had a voice to be raving with. They wouldn’t have seen themselves so clearly, if I hadn’t used my eyes to highlight their presence. They wouldn’t have known about their own existence if I hadn’t accepted to compromise mine with consistency.

They desperately needed a public, someone who could either applaud or boo (it didn’t really matter which), a screen where to transfer their sense of life, a stage where to display the talented actors they were.

My pain was so much in demand. Utilitarian and practical. Through it, they could acquire some for their own personal use. It gave them something to feel, something to discuss. It defined their contour and poured substance into their shape. My pain became theirs. They purified it. Elevated it. Fine-tuned its discourse.

Then, they sat me in front of them and forced me to listen. Over, and over, and over again. My million nods of compliance and fake sympathy, or my failed attempts to run and disappear, the symptoms of their demands for comfort. And when they ran out of things to say about themselves, their beings thinning into the air, we would crank the carrousel again, setting madness into motion, as in slashing my own veins for example, and all would get back to normalcy. Their ballooning ego once more visible above my screwed-up head.

Regularly, crises and accusations that I took too much place. That I triggered abuse with my hysterical attitude, forcing them into violent modes of operation. Imagine: that kid playing dead will be the death of us. That girl running away from us, she’s the one abandoning, not the abandoned.

As she gets locked up, tarnishing our reputation, we’re the one’s caught between a rock and a hard place. She sucks up our energy, so little left for the good actions we had intended. She robs us of all these opportunities to show how benevolent we are. And she leaves us with no other choice than to fight back.

Indeed, there’s nothing we wouldn’t have done for her. If she could be reasonable just for a minute, we would be able to restore our shine and rank. Once that’s done, we would have the means to really help her. She’s the one we love the most. Actually, there’s nobody but her in our heart.

More, she’s the only one who can make us feel profoundly miserable. That’s why she’s so important to us. We need her. Both her melancholia and masochistic rage are vital sources of nourishment. How else would we know the world? What other means are there to make us part of something real and tangible? How can we have a pulse if her arteries aren’t throbbing with torment? If fear and anxiety aren’t propelled through her nervous system? She’s our poisoned food. She’s the test we must pass. The challenge we must overcome in order to become. To have a name, and occupy the territories we merit. The more she hurts herself, the more we grow, the more we fulfill our inner promises. In short, the more disoriented she gets, the more we know who we are: Everything, except her.

Has anyone ever been more essential than me?

That conviction, that my aches were indispensable, the heart of relationships, the cement that held our universe together, my instinctive rushes to mutilate myself as if my traumas were the condition that kept others in good shape, my wounds the demented corroboration we had flesh, all of these, my own hallucinations, were a negative representation of the illness that afflicted us all.

Contrary to what I claimed back then, I am no different. Suffering from the same type of megalomania typical of the women in the family. Also positioning myself as a crucial pivot, a nucleus, even though a covert one. My self-admiration clandestine, and listed, as a trick to survive, under the “casualty” category. If it got too rough, under fatalities, just to be sure I’d be well hidden and would outlast them. My imagination, a tool for vengeance. Judging my successes by the exorbitant price I paid to make sure, when the time was ripe, they’d get in turn punished.

That’s how we were, in that family. The women. As for the man in the vicinity, I wouldn’t know. And neither did my sisters and mother.

He’s the mystery. The incongruity. So preoccupied with ourselves, we didn’t think about checking what he was doing. To us? To them? To me? Or to himself. Who knows?

As I enter old age, the past greets me with sorrow because I cannot understand any of the parts of my own history. Although I’m sure things could not have been different. We were who we were. A simple, natural case of genuine bad luck.