From 8b8b7e2b016f649937b05a6086c29d5177d96aa8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Madison Rye Progress Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2024 19:37:03 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] update from sparkleup --- .../post-self/what-right-have-I/first-pass.md | 21 +++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 21 insertions(+) create mode 100644 writing/post-self/what-right-have-I/first-pass.md diff --git a/writing/post-self/what-right-have-I/first-pass.md b/writing/post-self/what-right-have-I/first-pass.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3f4eadf9 --- /dev/null +++ b/writing/post-self/what-right-have-I/first-pass.md @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +The itch on my palms is not a real itch, and yet all the same, it demands to be scratched. I can scrub my paws down over my front or rub them over my thighs and gain momentary relief, but it will always come back when tensions run high. + +Many things will plague me when tensions run high. I will tic — a jerk of the head to the side with a squeak or a yelp or a quiet grunt. I will pace in an abbreviated line, my steps spelling out an ellipsis. My stammer will get ever worse. + +I maintain that these are an integral part of me, that I will never strive to rid myself of them. I say to myself that I will never cease pacing, that my tics are a form of communication, that scrubbing my paws over my tunic or trousers is simply a part of the way that I live. I promise myself — and you, whoever you are — that I will not elide my stammering. When tensions are running high, these are cemented within me as a part of my existence. + +Tensions are running high. + +I am supposed to be calm. Relaxed. Professional. I am supposed to do anything other than scrub my paws over my front and fidget with the hem of my tunic or visibly restrain myself from pacing. I am not supposed to yelp or squeak in the middle of someone speaking — least of all Rav From Whence! — and I am definitely not supposed to scuttle off stage to go lay down on the cushion I keep beneath my desk for high-anxiety moments such as these. + +I explain to myself and to others that the entire reason that I exist is to outlive the part of me that speaks in should-statements. I am not supposed to do any of these things, but 'suppose' is a 'should' in disguise. Reframe it: "I should not do–" + +No. + +I exist specifically to kill that version of What Right Have I. The whole reason that I *am* What Right Have I of the Ode clade and no longer am I From Whence Do I Call Out is because Rav From Whence knew that at least some part of her, some *version* of her should exist specifically to revel in unmasking. + +We are a revelrous clade. + +We are all hedonists, in our way. Conscientious hedonists, mind: we believe that *all* deserve revelry in that which is good, but simply that we, too, are included in that 'all'. + +Some revel in the hedonism of play, or the hedonism of creating, or the hedonism of food, of drink, of drugs. Some revel in the hedonism of naught: No Unknowable Spaces Echo My Words dreams of death and the lack of life, and to her, such is a joy. Unknowable Spaces's up-tree Before Whom Do I Kneel, Contrite dreams of the very lack of a sense of self, and to it, such is a joy.