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Plurality

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Madison Scott-Clary
2020-06-19 00:38:39 -07:00
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content/plurality/005.md
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@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ Yes, because to embark on a project of self-discovery, find something new and in
And no, because it doesn't feel particularly actionable. My life will not change substantially with this knowledge, no matter the outcome, will it? I will keep living my life, I will keep talking with you, I will keep dissociating when depressed, and whether or not these actions involve simply myself or some...other does not necessarily change them, right? I will still need to work on the dissociation, I will still interact with you.
Yes, because by virtue of making this project public, by virtue of interacting with you in so visible a way, I have made it matter to others, even if only as a thought experiment. Rax talks about it. Those in the comments of the original post talk about it. The replies to the tweet talk about it. It's useful for *others* to engage with the project in this sense, and is that not reason enough for it to matter? Does that not mean that I *must* consider it? I must seek to answer that question?
Yes, because by virtue of making this project public, by virtue of interacting with you in so visible a way, I have *made* it matter to others, even if only as a thought experiment. Rax talks about it. Those in the comments of the original post talk about it. The replies to the tweet talk about it. It's useful for *others* to engage with the project in this sense, and is that not reason enough for it to matter? Does that not mean that I *must* consider it? I must seek to answer that question?
And no, because there has to also be a distinction between what others read and what I feel. It is death of the author as adopted by the author, is it not? By writing a memoir, I am showing you, the audience, a portion of myself. Not the whole of me --- after all, is there not an encrypted page of the site? --- and by being only a portion of me, it must perforce be a front-stage version of me. In this sense, you *are* a literary device and nothing else. Whether or not you actually, or, well "actually" are anything else doesn't matter. You are a character in this drama.

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content/plurality/006.md
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@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ date: 2020-06-17
> Will you start working with hypotheticals? Will that be the way you talk around this in circles? Will you say "If I presuppose that I am in some way plural or median or this or that, what would my life look like as compared to if I am not?"
No. Maybe. But not here. Not out loud.
No.
> So quick an answer.
@ -17,16 +17,20 @@ Maybe, maybe not.
> But you won't explore it here?
No. The answer probably isn't final, but it is an answer.
No. Maybe, but not here. Not out loud. If nothing else, not now.
> Might you have if it had come up in some way other than the way it came up in the review?
> Would you have if it had come up in some way other than the way it did in the review?
Perhaps? Perhaps if I had considered "Huh, I sure do seem to talk about depressed Maddy as another person and I sure do have an entire project and published book utilizing the idea of a conversation with the other" I might have dug into it, but, as mentioned, it's very far down the priority list.
Perhaps?
Perhaps if I had considered "Huh, I sure do seem to talk about depressed Maddy as another person a lot and I sure do have an entire project and published book utilizing the idea of a conversation with someone who is both me and not me," I might have dug into it.
But that's not how it came up. It didn't come from me. This project isn't happening in a vacuum. I acknowledged this when I encrypted a post. I acknowledged this when I chose what to share and what not to. I acknowledged this when I embellished and obfuscated the truth.
> And this is just proof of that.
Yes. This is another instance of that, and this is another choice to be made. This is not a thing to talk about here because it would cheapen the end result by casting strange light on you, on me, and on the relationship we have with each other.
Yes. This is another instance of that, and this is another choice to be made. A very specific, very deliberate choice: this is not a thing to talk about here because it would cheapen the end result by casting too bright a light on you, on me, and on the relationship we have with each other.
That review forced me to face the fact that, in the end, we are not alone. That, of all things is something the book has brought me: the knowledge that we're not alone.
And that's not the point. *You* are not the point, though you give the project its name. *Our dynamic* is not the point. Any sense of plurality, any of these strange thoughts I'm left with are, as Rax says, not worth considering because they are not the work being done right now. The unintentional must now become the deliberate as I make that choice to say, "Okay, it's weird to be talking to an audience-surrogate with so much agency, but that is not the point here; the point is the lived experience."
Decisions made with a reader in mind, reactions to reactions of another, even the term 'audience-surrogate'...that review forced me to face a more tangential fact: the knowledge that I am --- that we are --- not alone.