A collection of short, personal stories through the most unknown, most misunderstood parts of human nature. A story of myself.
This is a work of fiction.
This is a work of fiction.
Apocrypha:
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Pavilion of Identities (Final): Apocrypha III, Apotheosis
To understand, to foresee
that the world, in itself, isn't really as free
as serene as you think.
But to embrace the true self
and love all the hearts decorated on that shelf
that's something I'd like to think.
As morose as the story goes,
the typical story of a kid becoming an adult,
the overused tale of a child who did not care,
but due to some traumatic events,
due to some shift in thought,
is forced to grow up, be mature,
be more receiving of the world's torture.
Yet, sometimes, I ponder,
am I the only one who goes through this,
am I the only one who ever thinks like this?
The complication of the simplest question
of love, of being human,
of the purpose in our lives here on earth.
People tend to wonder
what happens after we pass on,
will our brief presence in this world
be nothing more than earthly nutrients,
or will we be more than that,
will we be the ripple that transcends through
the past, present, and future?
I walk along the Aisle of Hatred,
once known as the Aisle of Love,
what I once felt was love,
yet for a moment, back then,
all I felt was hatred
for myself, for others,
for everything that defined us as humans.
I tried to look further away,
I tried to run further away,
but all that I sought for
was within me, all along.
And I rebuild it, never to hate again,
never to cry again;
a road never to intertwine
with the path of the lost wanderers,
the lost personalities,
the lost identities.
And I rebuild it, never to be late again
for the seasons of loving,
for the seasons of healing.
And thus I rebuild it, never to hate again.
I stand on the Presentation Stage,
a symbol of control,
a symbol of pride,
but was the savior, was the key
to understand the ways to be free
from all the suffering,
from all the gloating,
and learn to love and be loved
even while presenting.
And I rebuild it, never to symbolize again,
never to lift me up again,
for I belong in the audience,
I am part of the audience,
just like anyone else,
just like everyone else.
And I rebuild it, never to criticize again,
and learn to understand others,
and learn to be kind to others.
And thus I rebuild it, never to symbolize again.
I loiter in the Exhibition of Suffering,
I often ponder,
sufferings are still sufferings,
irrespective of nature,
exhibition and comparison
will never bring closure.
Is the exhibition of suffering
in itself, a suffering,
or is the exhibition of suffering
in itself, a healing?
And I rebuild it, never to compare again,
never to justify again,
but sufferings that are mental
are the maturation of the soul;
but that does not justify
the pride of a better suffering.
And I rebuild it, never to despair again,
as emotions are for the greatness of life,
as emotions are for the humanness of life.
And thus I rebuild it, never to compare again.
I swim in the Pool of Brainwash,
floating around, sinking around,
is it an exercise, or is it to save my life;
is it a compromise, or is it to drown my life?
A cleansing, a bathing,
chlorinated foam that consumes my life,
dragging me away from my life,
into the realms of another's life.
Yet, ain't it a bit too convenient,
ain't it an essential survival skill,
or is it bringing me closer and closer
to the tides of inhumanity?
And I rebuild it, never to flow again,
never to flow into my life again,
never to wash my brains again,
for it is better named 'flexibility',
an actual skill, not a brainwash,
for I am still me, for I am still me.
And I rebuild it, never to glow again,
never to entice me to drown myself,
never to seduce me to drown myself.
And thus I rebuild it, never to flow again.
I explore the Garden of True Selves,
wondering where has my true self gone to,
wondering if I still have a true self,
or is it over there, on that dusty shelf.
The spring wind no longer cools me down
from the piercing heat of the summer,
the autumn wind no longer calms me down,
from the paralyzing cold of the winter.
But at least, the leaves are there for me;
the trees, the grass, the flowers,
the butterflies, the birds, the crickets,
the sun, the moon, the earth,
and I reminisce of a better time on earth.
And I rebuild it, never to hide again,
but showcase all my true selves to the world,
for I am me, and nothing will change that,
nothing will hide me from me.
Yet, I may no longer be free,
no longer be able to hide in my fantasy,
but the true self is crucial for being human,
and is crucial to love another human.
And I rebuild it, never to guide again,
for I will no longer be lost in this fantasy,
for I will no longer be lost in this reality.
And thus I rebuild it, never to hide again.
I admire the Monument of The Artist,
a symbol of my pride,
but it is no longer something I want to hide,
so that I will not have lied
to the world that I'm on their side,
that I am wide-eyed, that I am battle-tried,
that I'm dried out and dyed, that I'm fried out and cried.
The monument is mine, same as the others,
having their own monuments, the same level as mine.
A monument to admire, a monument to understand,
golden as required, golden to inspire.
For pride is necessary in our everyday lives,
yet too much can bring the end of our lives.
And I rebuild it, never to have spoken again,
never to speak in place of me again,
never to give me peace again,
for I will bring about my own peace,
I will bring peace through humanity,
through love, through a promise,
that we'll be there for each other
forever and ever.
And I rebuild it, never to be golden again,
but sometimes I think I'll regret it,
but sometimes I think I'll forget it.
And thus I rebuild it, never to have spoken again.
What about the Apostasy,
the selling of the Pavilion of Identities?
The offer has been retracted,
sorry to all you potential buyers out there.
But I'm keeping this safe haven, just a little longer,
maybe till forever,
as long as humanity lives.
I promise it will never be destructive;
I promise it will never be repulsive;
I promise you
that I'll only be constructive.
I'll construct a safe haven for myself,
I'll construct a safe haven for you,
I'll construct safe havens for all of you,
for it is my duty, for it is my responsibility,
for it is our duty, for it is our responsibility,
to protect each other, to love each other,
together we'll be safe, in this haven named earth.
What about the Apocalpyse,
the destruction of the Pavilion of Identities?
It has been rebuilt,
rebuilt to all the humanest specifications.
The Aisle of Hatred is once again The Aisle of Love,
a path leading to love, and only love, and only love,
and only love.
The Presentation Stage is now the Presentation Field,
a field for all to present, and to represent me,
for all humans represent me, and I represent all humans.
The Exhibition of Suffering is no longer there,
as there is no longer a need to compare one's sufferings.
But I replaced it, with the Place of Compassion.
The Pool of Brainwash is dried up,
but then it rained one day, and rebuilt it
into the Pool of Flexibility, to take on the world.
The Garden of True Selves has been rebuilt
as a true part of me, as a true self of me,
as the true self of me, as tranquil as a garden.
The Monument of The Artist, remains as it is,
but now it can see, but now it can feel
the monuments of others, the monuments of humans.
But now I can see
and now I can feel
the scent of humans, the scent of my true self,
that my life is real,
that this is not fiction.
Everything I've been through, everything I've faced,
they all forged my true self,
they all made me into me.
But now, whenever pride
lulls me into a hypnosis,
I remember that every human
is an apotheosis.
that the world, in itself, isn't really as free
as serene as you think.
But to embrace the true self
and love all the hearts decorated on that shelf
that's something I'd like to think.
As morose as the story goes,
the typical story of a kid becoming an adult,
the overused tale of a child who did not care,
but due to some traumatic events,
due to some shift in thought,
is forced to grow up, be mature,
be more receiving of the world's torture.
Yet, sometimes, I ponder,
am I the only one who goes through this,
am I the only one who ever thinks like this?
The complication of the simplest question
of love, of being human,
of the purpose in our lives here on earth.
People tend to wonder
what happens after we pass on,
will our brief presence in this world
be nothing more than earthly nutrients,
or will we be more than that,
will we be the ripple that transcends through
the past, present, and future?
I walk along the Aisle of Hatred,
once known as the Aisle of Love,
what I once felt was love,
yet for a moment, back then,
all I felt was hatred
for myself, for others,
for everything that defined us as humans.
I tried to look further away,
I tried to run further away,
but all that I sought for
was within me, all along.
And I rebuild it, never to hate again,
never to cry again;
a road never to intertwine
with the path of the lost wanderers,
the lost personalities,
the lost identities.
And I rebuild it, never to be late again
for the seasons of loving,
for the seasons of healing.
And thus I rebuild it, never to hate again.
I stand on the Presentation Stage,
a symbol of control,
a symbol of pride,
but was the savior, was the key
to understand the ways to be free
from all the suffering,
from all the gloating,
and learn to love and be loved
even while presenting.
And I rebuild it, never to symbolize again,
never to lift me up again,
for I belong in the audience,
I am part of the audience,
just like anyone else,
just like everyone else.
And I rebuild it, never to criticize again,
and learn to understand others,
and learn to be kind to others.
And thus I rebuild it, never to symbolize again.
I loiter in the Exhibition of Suffering,
I often ponder,
sufferings are still sufferings,
irrespective of nature,
exhibition and comparison
will never bring closure.
Is the exhibition of suffering
in itself, a suffering,
or is the exhibition of suffering
in itself, a healing?
And I rebuild it, never to compare again,
never to justify again,
but sufferings that are mental
are the maturation of the soul;
but that does not justify
the pride of a better suffering.
And I rebuild it, never to despair again,
as emotions are for the greatness of life,
as emotions are for the humanness of life.
And thus I rebuild it, never to compare again.
I swim in the Pool of Brainwash,
floating around, sinking around,
is it an exercise, or is it to save my life;
is it a compromise, or is it to drown my life?
A cleansing, a bathing,
chlorinated foam that consumes my life,
dragging me away from my life,
into the realms of another's life.
Yet, ain't it a bit too convenient,
ain't it an essential survival skill,
or is it bringing me closer and closer
to the tides of inhumanity?
And I rebuild it, never to flow again,
never to flow into my life again,
never to wash my brains again,
for it is better named 'flexibility',
an actual skill, not a brainwash,
for I am still me, for I am still me.
And I rebuild it, never to glow again,
never to entice me to drown myself,
never to seduce me to drown myself.
And thus I rebuild it, never to flow again.
I explore the Garden of True Selves,
wondering where has my true self gone to,
wondering if I still have a true self,
or is it over there, on that dusty shelf.
The spring wind no longer cools me down
from the piercing heat of the summer,
the autumn wind no longer calms me down,
from the paralyzing cold of the winter.
But at least, the leaves are there for me;
the trees, the grass, the flowers,
the butterflies, the birds, the crickets,
the sun, the moon, the earth,
and I reminisce of a better time on earth.
And I rebuild it, never to hide again,
but showcase all my true selves to the world,
for I am me, and nothing will change that,
nothing will hide me from me.
Yet, I may no longer be free,
no longer be able to hide in my fantasy,
but the true self is crucial for being human,
and is crucial to love another human.
And I rebuild it, never to guide again,
for I will no longer be lost in this fantasy,
for I will no longer be lost in this reality.
And thus I rebuild it, never to hide again.
I admire the Monument of The Artist,
a symbol of my pride,
but it is no longer something I want to hide,
so that I will not have lied
to the world that I'm on their side,
that I am wide-eyed, that I am battle-tried,
that I'm dried out and dyed, that I'm fried out and cried.
The monument is mine, same as the others,
having their own monuments, the same level as mine.
A monument to admire, a monument to understand,
golden as required, golden to inspire.
For pride is necessary in our everyday lives,
yet too much can bring the end of our lives.
And I rebuild it, never to have spoken again,
never to speak in place of me again,
never to give me peace again,
for I will bring about my own peace,
I will bring peace through humanity,
through love, through a promise,
that we'll be there for each other
forever and ever.
And I rebuild it, never to be golden again,
but sometimes I think I'll regret it,
but sometimes I think I'll forget it.
And thus I rebuild it, never to have spoken again.
What about the Apostasy,
the selling of the Pavilion of Identities?
The offer has been retracted,
sorry to all you potential buyers out there.
But I'm keeping this safe haven, just a little longer,
maybe till forever,
as long as humanity lives.
I promise it will never be destructive;
I promise it will never be repulsive;
I promise you
that I'll only be constructive.
I'll construct a safe haven for myself,
I'll construct a safe haven for you,
I'll construct safe havens for all of you,
for it is my duty, for it is my responsibility,
for it is our duty, for it is our responsibility,
to protect each other, to love each other,
together we'll be safe, in this haven named earth.
What about the Apocalpyse,
the destruction of the Pavilion of Identities?
It has been rebuilt,
rebuilt to all the humanest specifications.
The Aisle of Hatred is once again The Aisle of Love,
a path leading to love, and only love, and only love,
and only love.
The Presentation Stage is now the Presentation Field,
a field for all to present, and to represent me,
for all humans represent me, and I represent all humans.
The Exhibition of Suffering is no longer there,
as there is no longer a need to compare one's sufferings.
But I replaced it, with the Place of Compassion.
The Pool of Brainwash is dried up,
but then it rained one day, and rebuilt it
into the Pool of Flexibility, to take on the world.
The Garden of True Selves has been rebuilt
as a true part of me, as a true self of me,
as the true self of me, as tranquil as a garden.
The Monument of The Artist, remains as it is,
but now it can see, but now it can feel
the monuments of others, the monuments of humans.
But now I can see
and now I can feel
the scent of humans, the scent of my true self,
that my life is real,
that this is not fiction.
Everything I've been through, everything I've faced,
they all forged my true self,
they all made me into me.
But now, whenever pride
lulls me into a hypnosis,
I remember that every human
is an apotheosis.
"Why do you want to save me, why oh why?
Not just me, but all of me, all the lies
that I tell myself so that I could rise
from all the graves and all the broken ties.
But you, really I could not live without,
for you were there to hear my cries and shouts.
For what I wanted was to write about
all the parts of me that I have left out.
The everything that I have been through, now;
the nothings that I've yet to been through, now,
together, what do they make me, right now?
Am I at least something in this world, now?
The smiles, the frowns, the cries, they're everything;
yes, none of you will ever mean nothing.
Thanks to all of you, you've made me something;
but you, I would not trade for anything.
Anything at all;
for your love
is what makes me human."
- End
Pavilion of Identities: Apocrypha II, Apocalypse
- This is a work of fiction -
Those bluish, yellowish, slightly pinkish lights shine onto me, like a star under the multicolored spotlight. Soft, fragile petals wallow through the heavy air, sullenly, as if the trees they came from have just withered under the raging remorse of the cold, cold winter.
But there are no trees in the immediate vicinity, nor are there trees anywhere remotely close to where I'm standing, dressed in a black blazer and blacker slacks and the blackest pair of gloves. Trapped inside the blazer is a thinly-woven, cologne-veiled, heartbreakingly-expensive white long-sleeved buttoned shirt, decorated with a dash of gold glitter that would make an interesting showoff had the winter not been so merciless, or had I bought a thicker shirt (it'll presumably cost a lot more).
Frosty white stains begin to occupy every region of black on my poor, poor blazer. Without knowing it, I'm all white, as if I've been purified, cleansed by the holiness of what is basically sky dust. Not even my slickly-combed-to-the-side, slightly-waxed, soft-as-cotton black hair could escape the gaze of the blizzard deity, the ultimate judge, the truest savior.
I refuse to move an inch. I cannot move an inch. It is not a physical limitation, but a mental one. An overwhelming mental blockage prevents me from making one step outside the spotlight. I am conflicted. It is such a tremendously impassable situation, far more impassable than all the other impassables I've faced in the past twenty two years.
It's not that I haven't prepared for this moment; it's just... I can't explain it, but no amount of rehearsals, no amount of recordings, no amount of standing-in-front-of-the-mirrors can ever prepare me for this.
This is the final presentation.
All my research, all my hard work, all my sleepless nights, my coffee-binges, my rock-stiff shoulders and back, my exhausted brain, and my exquisitely-toned, sweaty muscular fingers, all for fifteen minutes of presentation. All that, for one conclusion:
"Corneal hysteresis decreases as the eye's intraocular pressure increases. This is in accordance to literature trends. However, corneal hysteresis decreases as the eye's central corneal thickness increases, which is against literature trends. This is proposed to be true for all corneas that have not been stretched or thinned."
Is this even a conclusive statement? The results that I've obtained are against literature trends, and I found a reason to justify it. It could be a genuine academic breakthrough, or it could just be an excuse for a poorly-optimized simulation. If it is the former, great, The One will be extremely pleased. If it is the latter... Well, I wouldn't even dare to imagine it.
But you see, I care for The One. I care for him a lot. After all, I am an identity that is modeled after The One. I symbolize everything that The One wishes to be. I symbolize everything that is contained in The One's infallible tower of pride. That makes me the identity of everything, and also makes me The One, and makes The One me.
I have to emphasize this: I care for The One. Now, the impassable situation, the biggest conflict of my life is this: is it better to satisfy The One and fuel his pride, or is it better to betray The One and destroy his tower of pride?
Is it better if all my hard work be accepted as an academic breakthrough, or is it better if it is condemned, criticized, perhaps rejected for inaccuracy, inconsistency, a flat-out lie?
There is one thing that I'm certain of: excessive pride is detrimental to The One's health, The One's humanity, The One's sanity.
Every single part of me is still bathed in the iridescence of the rainbow light prisms. I am still white, purified, yet my heart and mind are still conflicted. My heart wants The One to be happy, to continue living in a prideful world where he is king and all others are below him; my mind knows that The One cannot afford to continue this destructive lifestyle, for every second of being a power-hungry tyrant is every step backwards from being human.
The One has to learn to connect with other humans. The One has to learn to love. The One has to understand the true meaning of his catchphrase, "love is what makes us human", and not just brainwash himself to love others just to make himself human. The One has to know that the Pavilion of Identities is a safe haven that is helping him grow, not a toxic prison that is hindering his progress to accomplish world domination.
The snow started to fall when night came. It has always been the sunniest daylight, the tranquilest spring before that. What happened? How did it all become like this?
The One is giving up on his Pavilion of Identities.
The One is putting his one and only safe haven up for sale. To who? Who will even think of using a safe haven that has been thrashed, obliterated, utterly unappreciated by The One who is barely human, much less buying it at such an exorbitant price?! $27678279? By typing the numbers on a telephone keypad, you get APOSTASY. Is The One insinuating that he knows he's committing apostasy? Who in the right mind would even think of selling their very own personal safe haven; not just any safe haven, but a belief, a form of faith that could ultimately bring The One very much closer to being a human human?
The One should be proud of his safe haven; not many have the privilege and the creativity to build their very own safe haven. These people have nowhere to run to when they're lost, nowhere to explore their various personalities and identities, nowhere to hide when things get messy, but worst of all, they will get nowhere near to truly understanding themselves.
I've tried to reason with The One. Not just me alone; I had the help of the original identity of The One: an identity that symbolizes the nothingness that The One used to be. She symbolizes the shadowy nothingness that is contained in The One's storm-shrouded, deeply-rooted, slightly crumbled, yet still overwhelmingly solid castle of nonconfidence and misery. That makes her the identity of nothing, and also made her The One, and made The One her.
The One rejected her in place of me. To The One, being everything is better than being nothing at all. In truth, the belief that someone is ranked above everything in the world is as harmful and self-destructive as the belief that someone is ranked even below "nothing".
The two beliefs, however, are essential for being human. To be human, we must believe that we are both everything and nothing at the same time; we must work hard for the sake of our pride and work hard to maintain and justify our pride, and that in the grand scheme of the human race and timeline, we are the product of everything (that is, every person that has ever lived, every event that has ever occurred, every thought that has ever been thought of) that has brought us, as individuals, up to this very moment in time; yet we must also be humble and altruistic, and that in the grand scheme of the human race and timeline, we, as individuals, are simply nothing special, nothing essential, nothing that will affect the grand scheme of the human race and timeline.
Simply put, the human race as a whole represents everything, while the individual as a sole entity represents nothing. We, as humans, have to strive to be both, have to strive to fight for both, have to strive to ensure the survival of both. We, as humans, have to strive not to be everything or nothing, but something.
The One hated this idea. He brainwashed himself into believing that all this is a work of fiction. Truthfully, all the stories that I've written thus far, the Pavilion of Identities, and the characters I've created and developed, they're all fiction, or part of a larger work of fiction; a fictionalization of The One's real life. However, the concepts of these stories, the ideas behind humanity, and the emotions that drive these stories, these are not fiction.
But if The One refuses to accept a Presentation based on conflicting beliefs between the identities of everything (me) and nothing (her), then there is only one way to save him; there is only one way to make him human.
I slowly lift my right arm upwards, as the jacket of frosty white begin to waterfall off the black armor of truth, starting from the tips of my gloved fingers, moving down towards my elbow, all the way to my right shoulder. The entire right arm of mine blackens, as if it is corrupted by the darkness of the reality of humanity, as the rest of my body, including my chapped, bleeding lips, remain as white as the cloudiest paradise.
A normal-sized, somewhat heavy handheld microphone materializes in the centre of my right palm. My fingers, shivering from the frigidity of the devastating understanding of humanity, curl around the cylindrical portion of the slippery-smooth, buttonless, switchless microphone. Its inherent darkness complements the darkness of my right arm so well, it seemingly merges into my right arm, transforming it into a shadowy weapon of truth.
There is only one way to make him human. There is only one way to make me human.
I am ready. I bring the microphone closer to my lips.
This is the final presentation.
"Glaucoma is a disease that can cause blindness. It affects over sixty million people worldwide, and is the second leading cause of blindness. There are three risk factors for glaucoma: intraocular pressure, central corneal thickness, and corneal hysteresis.
What is corneal hysteresis? Corneal hysteresis is defined as the difference in the two corneal applanation pressures. Corneal applanation can be achieved by applying a pressured air puff that is directed towards the cornea. This air puff lightly inwardly deforms the originally convex-shaped cornea, until it is perfectly flattened. This state of flattening is known as corneal applanation. The cornea continues to deform inwards until it achieves a mildly concave shape.
At this point, the pressure of the air puff is decreased until zero. However, the cornea is a viscoelastic material, and thus does not instantaneously respond to the air puff pressure decrease; there is a delay, or lag, between the decrease in air puff pressure and the time when the cornea actually responds to it. This delay in response is known as corneal hysteresis.
One of the risk factors of glaucoma is low corneal hysteresis. It is claimed that the lower the corneal hysteresis, the shorter the delay in response between the decrease in air puff pressure and the time when the cornea actually responds to it. This implies that the cornea does not effectively absorb or handle the shock caused by the impact of the air puff. Therefore, if there is a raised intraocular pressure within the eye, a cornea with low corneal hysteresis cannot effectively absorb the shock caused by the impact of the raised intraocular pressure. Due to this ineffective shock absorption, the cornea stiffly bears the impact of the raised intraocular pressure, possibly causing intense eye sores and blindness, which are symptoms associated with glaucoma.
Therefore, a cornea with high corneal hysteresis can effectively absorb the shock caused by the impact of the air puff, and thus can also effectively absorb the shock caused by the impact of the raised intraocular pressure. These corneas are able to better withstand the effects of raised intraocular pressures, and are thus able to better resist the occurrence of glaucoma."
By the end of that sentence, my right arm has already been purified, whitened by the holiness of the sin-cleansing snowfall. To The One, the final presentation thus far has been remarkably smooth, in strict accordance to his exceedingly high expectations, and has been executed with utmost perfection.
Five minutes have passed. Ten more minutes before the final presentation has to end.
"Now we can understand the reason why high corneal hysteresis is a desired ocular property in the medical world. However, is it possible to understand the reason why high corneal hysteresis is also a desired ocular property in the human world?"
I feel a strong gust of the chillest air gushing towards my direction, pummeling onto my angelic white mask, revealing the bleakest shadow of a head, a face, details of which are unimportant as the spotlights are now angled to only enlighten the remaining white parts of my body, which are obviously not my recently rotten face and re-rotten right arm.
The One does not need to be able to witness my right arm and face, for my identity is insignificant, but my Presentation, which contains the truth of humanity, is the only thing that has any value.
I continue.
"High corneal hysteresis indicates a larger delay between the stimuli and response. In human terms, this means that there is a larger delay between the witnessing of an event by your eyes, and the execution of a responsive action to the particular event by your body. This is due to the fact that you can more effectively absorb the shock caused by the impact of witnessing the event. This larger delay between the witnessing and the execution indicates that your brain processes the event for a longer time before executing a response to the particular event.
Say, you witness a human falling down and injuring their knee. With low corneal hysteresis, when you witness the blood flowing out of the human's injured knee, your brain does not process the event properly as you cannot absorb the shock caused by the impact of witnessing the fall and the blood, so you almost instantaneously execute a useless action, such as screaming or running away. This can mean both everything and nothing in the grand scheme of the human race and timeline. It can mean everything, as the injured human could have bled to death due to your lack of assistance, and this injured human, who is now dead, could have been a developer of a cure to a hypothetical disease that would wipe out the entire human race. It can also mean nothing, as the injured human could have quickly recovered from the fall, perhaps without so much of a scar, and their life goes on as if the fall never happened.
Your low corneal hysteresis could have changed everything, or could have changed nothing. This is not the desired outcome. This does not make you human."
While articulating the last sentence, 'This does not make you human.', I have been subconsciously pointing my left index finger slightly upwards; a sixty-degree angle from my line of sight, towards The One, towards the source of pride. This act is a grave sin, an unforgivable mistake, and the punishment is the tainting of my left arm, the staining of my left arm by the nefarious slimy black goo of inhumanity. Only my torso and my lower body are spared of judgement. The wintry white blizzard continues to thunder across the area, but the white gets whiter, and the black only gets darker.
"Let's take the same event of you witnessing a human falling down and injuring their knee. With high corneal hysteresis, when you witness the blood flowing out of the human's injured knee, your brain actually processes the event properly, as you can now effectively absorb the shock caused by the impact of witnessing the fall and the blood. This means that you delay in executing an action, however, the action will be more meaningful, more human, simply because you take more time in processing the event. The human mind is overwhelmingly intelligent; we are bound to execute a meaningful action given enough processing time.
The meaningful action can be as simple as helping the fallen human up, checking for the severity of the wound, phoning for emergency services, or even just the act of asking if they're doing alright. All of these actions are meaningful and human; it shows that you care, it shows that you are concerned, it shows that you love and wants to be loved.
People tend to confuse the action of loving with the event of being in a relationship, or having sex. This cannot be any further from the truth. Love is the bond formed between two or more humans. Love is the bond formed between you and yourself.
Love is not a cliche term, nor is it something that is 'sissy', 'weak', or 'humiliating'. No. Love does not require hugs, kisses, or any form of physical contact to be transferred from one human to another. Love is simply the act of caring. Love is simply the belief that we are all equal, and that all the actions we execute are to change something in the grand scheme of the human race and timeline. Love is simply the faith in another human being, the trust that they will execute a meaningful action when you have fallen down, the understanding that their meaningful action can change something in the grand scheme of the human race and timeline.
Love does not change everything in an instant, and does not change nothing at all. But love will change something. It may not be a big thing, but that is completely fine.
It is the little things that make us who we are, that make us human.
Love means something in the grand scheme of the human race and timeline. By giving love and receiving love, the effects will ripple across the human race and timeline, through the past, present, and future, through all genders, races, religions, sexual orientations.
Your high corneal hysteresis will have changed something. This is the desired outcome. This makes you human. This makes you part of the human race. This makes you part of the human timeline.
In the medical world, high corneal hysteresis is a good indicator that you are at a low risk of developing glaucoma; your risk of getting blind decreases tremendously. In the human world, the phenomenon of blindness does not relate to the ability of the eye to observe, or the brain to visually interpret the surroundings. In the human world, blindness is the ability for the heart to see. To see other humans as humans, to see yourself as human, for humans naturally love each other, as that is what we were evolved to do.
In the human world, by having a high corneal hysteresis, you will no longer be blind. By not being blind, you will be able to see in human terms, you will be able to effectively absorb the shock caused by the impact of seeing other humans. You will love, and you will change something, and the cycle repeats, across the human race, across the human timeline.
Because love, is what makes us human."
The malicious shade of heartlessness leaks out of the tyrannical The One, the arrogant being, the disdainful animal, as it devours every nook and cranny of my very human, very loving torso. The entirety of me, with the exception of my lower body, is clouded in a murky, somber black fog, even though the blizzard of repentance is still blessing the Presentation Stage, baptizing it with divine, spiritual white frozen water. I look downwards, gazing into the paleness of my holy white legs, as if being reluctantly offered a golden opportunity by The One to save myself, to stop the Presentation, to run away from the Stage, to seek salvation and to once again become The One.
If I continue my incessant sinning and disobedience, my legs will join me in pitch black inhumanity, and the Presentation will end, immediately. I will no longer have a chance to save The One, and I will be cast aside, ignored and vilified, just like the other ninety-nine identities, just like the original identity of the One: the identity of nothing. A new identity will be created, and the identity will forever be the Presenter, until they are cast aside for newer identities, and the cycle repeats.
The One will never be human if that happens.
But I will succeed.
I have to destroy this world, and rebuild it from scratch.
I have to save the apostate.
"You are a self-proclaimed artist, aren't you? Not just any artist, but The Artist. You created this place. You created us, yet you cast aside ninety-nine of us. For what purpose did you choose to do so? Is it because the other ninety-nine did not feed your glutton for pride? Is it because the other ninety-nine lack essential survival skills, that they would not be able to thrive in the real world? I know you; the latter justification is what you're thinking; that the other ninety-nine identities are too weak, too timid, too stupid to survive, that you need a stronger identity to hold your hand and walk you through the harshness of this fucked up world?
But me... I helped you survive the university environment, I held your hand and walked you through the harshness of research, thus I am the identity that you need, the identity that is modeled after you, the identity that you are modeled after. That's what you're thinking, right? Well, are you satisfied? How human are you, really? Think about it. Remember the time when you were so focused on winning a team competition that you angrily lashed out at your best friend for only slightly disappointing you? Remember the time when you wanted to listen to the sufferings of others, not because you wanted to understand them, or console them, but because you wanted to feel better about your own sufferings, because you wanted to feel like you were stronger than them, that you've been through more than them, that they are inferior to you simply because you've suffered more than them.
You wanted to fuel your ego so badly, so so badly...
How many true friends do you have? No, I don't mean friends that you simply pretend to care for, but truthfully only give a damn about their sufferings and how it is compared to yours. True friends are other humans that you express genuine concern for their sufferings, and legitimately want their sufferings to end and will do anything to walk them through their sufferings, even if it means sacrificing your ego. Does it exceed the number of fingers on any one of your hands? Does it exceed half that amount?
... Does it?
The previous identities may not have the resilience and the tenacity of the identity of everything--me, but they were more capable of loving and receiving love, they were more capable of processing events, and absorbing the shock caused by the impact of those events, they were more capable of being human and making you human.
Me? I'm not capable of doing that. I may have philosophized about what it means to be human, the concepts of everything, nothing, and something, and the interpretations of love, but I was not created to be a human, I was not created to make you human.
You created me to be everything, and now you're artistically painting all these dyes of black onto me, for I am no longer your fine work of art, I am no longer the perfect product of your creativity and imagination.
I philosophize because I'm you. My thoughts are your thoughts, because I am still you, The One, despite going against your orders and am currently soaked in this wretched filth. You know that you're thinking the same things as I am, and deep down, you truly, earnestly want to be human, you sincerely want to love and be loved, you genuinely want to be something.
You've been through a lot, you've thought a lot and you now understand a lot.
Remember the first chapters of your life? You were so scared at first, so fearful of humans, and desperately tried to avoid them, to stay away from the action of loving, to ignore the heart and to shiver at the mere sight of human connections. You were nothing. By rejecting the identity of nothing, you soon recovered from that phase, and were lost in the raging sea of humans, not knowing where to go, what to do, who to love and who to receive love from. You tried to understand what went wrong, having explored the consequences of events in the past, present, and future, and the grand scheme of the human race and timeline.
As you found no satisfactory answer, you conceptualized the existence of 'personalities' that govern all human things that you did, all human actions that you executed, even the love that you had to give and receive. These personalities justified everything you did, especially actions that are deemed inhuman in nature. At that time, you justified that you were still human on the inside, and the personalities were to blame for all your projected inhumanity. When you finally learned to take control of your life and emerged from the period of darkness as an artist, your personalities were not deleted; they were stored in the deepest parts of you, together with the identity of nothing, and took up the term 'identities', rather than 'personalities', for they no longer represented you, The One, but a completely separate entity that you claim does not represent you in any way, form, or nature.
After those turbulent first chapters of your life, you thought you were getting better. You conceptualized the existence of 'The Artist', and you merrily lived your life in that persona. It wasn't as self-destructive as the personalities, for you became confident and were in stronger control of your life and the events that were executed. Your brain processed events better, and your absorb the shock caused by the impact of those events more effectively. In essence, you were finally the artist of your own life, creating your own paths, writing up your own stories. You thought that you have succeeded in being human.
As human as you thought you were, you were nothing more than a tyrant, an animal, an egoistical consumer of the sufferings of others. You placed yourself on a pedestal far too high for any other human to even think about saving you. Your heart was no longer human, as you brain began to process events in worldly terms. You had a desire, a worldly desire, to change the world and fight for all humans and improve the lives of all humans, yet you could not do that in the end, for you were not human, perhaps even less human than before. You were a monster who fed on pride. At the end of it, you realized, you fucked up.
When you went on the university exchange program to another country, you wanted a restart of your life. A new environment, filled with new people, new events, and new forms of humanity. You were excited, and you were seeking to explore the concept of love and humanity, but through what? Faking, faking, and more faking. You were putting so many human masks on your face that you forgot who you were. You were pretending to be human, trying to fit into the human world, and pretending to love and be loved. You were exhausted. It was definitely a memorable adventure, yet you felt unsatisfied, for you were not you.
At the end of it, you realized that deep down, you were human after all. By removing all the barriers, all the masks, all the personalities that you've put up, you arrived back to the time before it all started, before those turbulent first chapters of your life, your worded life, the life that is expressed in words for all to read and understand, the nonfiction life of you, The One.
This is not a work of fiction.
And by fictionalizing it, you have brought upon the apocalypse, you have destroyed the other ninety-nine identities, leaving me as the sole identity, the sole Presenter, The One. Everything you've worked for in the past, every idea you've thought of, every concept you've understood, and every single piece of the puzzle that you've pieced together to understand yourself, all of them are destroyed, fictionalized, made unreal and insignificant by your pride, by me.
I'm sorry.
Alone, I can't do shit, I can't achieve your dream of being human, I can't satisfy your need for love, I simply can't. All I can do is fuel your pride, rebuild your tyrannical fortress, and brainwash you that you are great, that you are perfect.
All I can do... is to stray you further and further away from your true self.
Your true self as a human.
Please, I'm begging you, destroy this world, obliterate every inch of it! It's too late to save this world now; it's far, far too late... But you are strong, The One. Accept your past, embrace your humanity, realize that all your findings, all your ideas and thoughts, even your research about corneal hysteresis, they are all not works of fiction.
Nothing is.
Every poem, every story you've written so far has been allegories about your life. The metaphors, the imagery, and the characters you've written may be fictional, but the underlying message is never fictional.
That's how you survived, after all.
Please, I'm begging you, The One... After destroying this place, rebuild it with all your might and all your intelligence and all your experience, rebuild it with full knowledge that all events that have occurred in your life are not fictional, rebuild it with full understanding that I alone can't save you...
But all of us can.
All one hundred identities of yours. Together, we are The One, full of the simplicity of humanity, full of the complexity of humanity. Together, we can mean something.
Together, we are something..."
The snow falls.
The snow of salvation falls.
The whiteness rains. The stormiest night since the creation of the Pavilion of Identities. The green landscape, the bright, lush flowers, the rocky aisle, the wooden stage and cuboids, the sparkling blue pool, the golden monument, all white, all purified, but not The One's pride.
The whiteness rains. The calmest night since the creation of me. The preaching right hand, the thinking head, the judging left hand, the loving torso, and the resisting legs, all white, all purified, but not The One's pride.
The whiteness rains, evermore, ever more than usual, ever more then needed, as the multicolored spotlights shy away in the comfort of the cloak of white, the carpet of snow, all white, all purified, but not The One's pride.
The whiteness rains, as tears of anguish flood down my pale face, as the sick heart begins to understand, as the tormented hands obscure the face, as the cold, hard wooden floor seemingly disappears, as I tumble through the spirals of my life, the spirals of my humanity, as I find myself entangled in the vines of broken bonds, as the thorns of broken love, pierce through
the broken me.
The sadness rains.
What have I done? What am I? Who am I? Have I always been like this?
Have I always been this childish?
Have I always been this heartless?
All I wanted was... to find someone to love.
All I wanted was... to find someone that loves me.
All I wanted...
was
you
" ?
, ,
.
, ,
.
.
, ;
, ,
, , ?
, ?
, , , ;
.
, ;
, .
;
."
Thank you...
Thank you... for loving us...
for your love
is what makes us human.
It stopped raining.
I stand up.
I make myself a cup of coffee.
I sit on my chair.
I sip the coffee.
I reminisce.
I know that I have something to do.
I have to rebuild this place.
I refuse to move an inch. I cannot move an inch. It is not a physical limitation, but a mental one. An overwhelming mental blockage prevents me from making one step outside the spotlight. I am conflicted. It is such a tremendously impassable situation, far more impassable than all the other impassables I've faced in the past twenty two years.
It's not that I haven't prepared for this moment; it's just... I can't explain it, but no amount of rehearsals, no amount of recordings, no amount of standing-in-front-of-the-mirrors can ever prepare me for this.
This is the final presentation.
All my research, all my hard work, all my sleepless nights, my coffee-binges, my rock-stiff shoulders and back, my exhausted brain, and my exquisitely-toned, sweaty muscular fingers, all for fifteen minutes of presentation. All that, for one conclusion:
"Corneal hysteresis decreases as the eye's intraocular pressure increases. This is in accordance to literature trends. However, corneal hysteresis decreases as the eye's central corneal thickness increases, which is against literature trends. This is proposed to be true for all corneas that have not been stretched or thinned."
Is this even a conclusive statement? The results that I've obtained are against literature trends, and I found a reason to justify it. It could be a genuine academic breakthrough, or it could just be an excuse for a poorly-optimized simulation. If it is the former, great, The One will be extremely pleased. If it is the latter... Well, I wouldn't even dare to imagine it.
But you see, I care for The One. I care for him a lot. After all, I am an identity that is modeled after The One. I symbolize everything that The One wishes to be. I symbolize everything that is contained in The One's infallible tower of pride. That makes me the identity of everything, and also makes me The One, and makes The One me.
I have to emphasize this: I care for The One. Now, the impassable situation, the biggest conflict of my life is this: is it better to satisfy The One and fuel his pride, or is it better to betray The One and destroy his tower of pride?
Is it better if all my hard work be accepted as an academic breakthrough, or is it better if it is condemned, criticized, perhaps rejected for inaccuracy, inconsistency, a flat-out lie?
There is one thing that I'm certain of: excessive pride is detrimental to The One's health, The One's humanity, The One's sanity.
Every single part of me is still bathed in the iridescence of the rainbow light prisms. I am still white, purified, yet my heart and mind are still conflicted. My heart wants The One to be happy, to continue living in a prideful world where he is king and all others are below him; my mind knows that The One cannot afford to continue this destructive lifestyle, for every second of being a power-hungry tyrant is every step backwards from being human.
The One has to learn to connect with other humans. The One has to learn to love. The One has to understand the true meaning of his catchphrase, "love is what makes us human", and not just brainwash himself to love others just to make himself human. The One has to know that the Pavilion of Identities is a safe haven that is helping him grow, not a toxic prison that is hindering his progress to accomplish world domination.
The snow started to fall when night came. It has always been the sunniest daylight, the tranquilest spring before that. What happened? How did it all become like this?
The One is giving up on his Pavilion of Identities.
The One is putting his one and only safe haven up for sale. To who? Who will even think of using a safe haven that has been thrashed, obliterated, utterly unappreciated by The One who is barely human, much less buying it at such an exorbitant price?! $27678279? By typing the numbers on a telephone keypad, you get APOSTASY. Is The One insinuating that he knows he's committing apostasy? Who in the right mind would even think of selling their very own personal safe haven; not just any safe haven, but a belief, a form of faith that could ultimately bring The One very much closer to being a human human?
The One should be proud of his safe haven; not many have the privilege and the creativity to build their very own safe haven. These people have nowhere to run to when they're lost, nowhere to explore their various personalities and identities, nowhere to hide when things get messy, but worst of all, they will get nowhere near to truly understanding themselves.
I've tried to reason with The One. Not just me alone; I had the help of the original identity of The One: an identity that symbolizes the nothingness that The One used to be. She symbolizes the shadowy nothingness that is contained in The One's storm-shrouded, deeply-rooted, slightly crumbled, yet still overwhelmingly solid castle of nonconfidence and misery. That makes her the identity of nothing, and also made her The One, and made The One her.
The One rejected her in place of me. To The One, being everything is better than being nothing at all. In truth, the belief that someone is ranked above everything in the world is as harmful and self-destructive as the belief that someone is ranked even below "nothing".
The two beliefs, however, are essential for being human. To be human, we must believe that we are both everything and nothing at the same time; we must work hard for the sake of our pride and work hard to maintain and justify our pride, and that in the grand scheme of the human race and timeline, we are the product of everything (that is, every person that has ever lived, every event that has ever occurred, every thought that has ever been thought of) that has brought us, as individuals, up to this very moment in time; yet we must also be humble and altruistic, and that in the grand scheme of the human race and timeline, we, as individuals, are simply nothing special, nothing essential, nothing that will affect the grand scheme of the human race and timeline.
Simply put, the human race as a whole represents everything, while the individual as a sole entity represents nothing. We, as humans, have to strive to be both, have to strive to fight for both, have to strive to ensure the survival of both. We, as humans, have to strive not to be everything or nothing, but something.
The One hated this idea. He brainwashed himself into believing that all this is a work of fiction. Truthfully, all the stories that I've written thus far, the Pavilion of Identities, and the characters I've created and developed, they're all fiction, or part of a larger work of fiction; a fictionalization of The One's real life. However, the concepts of these stories, the ideas behind humanity, and the emotions that drive these stories, these are not fiction.
But if The One refuses to accept a Presentation based on conflicting beliefs between the identities of everything (me) and nothing (her), then there is only one way to save him; there is only one way to make him human.
I slowly lift my right arm upwards, as the jacket of frosty white begin to waterfall off the black armor of truth, starting from the tips of my gloved fingers, moving down towards my elbow, all the way to my right shoulder. The entire right arm of mine blackens, as if it is corrupted by the darkness of the reality of humanity, as the rest of my body, including my chapped, bleeding lips, remain as white as the cloudiest paradise.
A normal-sized, somewhat heavy handheld microphone materializes in the centre of my right palm. My fingers, shivering from the frigidity of the devastating understanding of humanity, curl around the cylindrical portion of the slippery-smooth, buttonless, switchless microphone. Its inherent darkness complements the darkness of my right arm so well, it seemingly merges into my right arm, transforming it into a shadowy weapon of truth.
There is only one way to make him human. There is only one way to make me human.
I am ready. I bring the microphone closer to my lips.
This is the final presentation.
"Glaucoma is a disease that can cause blindness. It affects over sixty million people worldwide, and is the second leading cause of blindness. There are three risk factors for glaucoma: intraocular pressure, central corneal thickness, and corneal hysteresis.
What is corneal hysteresis? Corneal hysteresis is defined as the difference in the two corneal applanation pressures. Corneal applanation can be achieved by applying a pressured air puff that is directed towards the cornea. This air puff lightly inwardly deforms the originally convex-shaped cornea, until it is perfectly flattened. This state of flattening is known as corneal applanation. The cornea continues to deform inwards until it achieves a mildly concave shape.
At this point, the pressure of the air puff is decreased until zero. However, the cornea is a viscoelastic material, and thus does not instantaneously respond to the air puff pressure decrease; there is a delay, or lag, between the decrease in air puff pressure and the time when the cornea actually responds to it. This delay in response is known as corneal hysteresis.
One of the risk factors of glaucoma is low corneal hysteresis. It is claimed that the lower the corneal hysteresis, the shorter the delay in response between the decrease in air puff pressure and the time when the cornea actually responds to it. This implies that the cornea does not effectively absorb or handle the shock caused by the impact of the air puff. Therefore, if there is a raised intraocular pressure within the eye, a cornea with low corneal hysteresis cannot effectively absorb the shock caused by the impact of the raised intraocular pressure. Due to this ineffective shock absorption, the cornea stiffly bears the impact of the raised intraocular pressure, possibly causing intense eye sores and blindness, which are symptoms associated with glaucoma.
Therefore, a cornea with high corneal hysteresis can effectively absorb the shock caused by the impact of the air puff, and thus can also effectively absorb the shock caused by the impact of the raised intraocular pressure. These corneas are able to better withstand the effects of raised intraocular pressures, and are thus able to better resist the occurrence of glaucoma."
By the end of that sentence, my right arm has already been purified, whitened by the holiness of the sin-cleansing snowfall. To The One, the final presentation thus far has been remarkably smooth, in strict accordance to his exceedingly high expectations, and has been executed with utmost perfection.
Five minutes have passed. Ten more minutes before the final presentation has to end.
"Now we can understand the reason why high corneal hysteresis is a desired ocular property in the medical world. However, is it possible to understand the reason why high corneal hysteresis is also a desired ocular property in the human world?"
I feel a strong gust of the chillest air gushing towards my direction, pummeling onto my angelic white mask, revealing the bleakest shadow of a head, a face, details of which are unimportant as the spotlights are now angled to only enlighten the remaining white parts of my body, which are obviously not my recently rotten face and re-rotten right arm.
The One does not need to be able to witness my right arm and face, for my identity is insignificant, but my Presentation, which contains the truth of humanity, is the only thing that has any value.
I continue.
"High corneal hysteresis indicates a larger delay between the stimuli and response. In human terms, this means that there is a larger delay between the witnessing of an event by your eyes, and the execution of a responsive action to the particular event by your body. This is due to the fact that you can more effectively absorb the shock caused by the impact of witnessing the event. This larger delay between the witnessing and the execution indicates that your brain processes the event for a longer time before executing a response to the particular event.
Say, you witness a human falling down and injuring their knee. With low corneal hysteresis, when you witness the blood flowing out of the human's injured knee, your brain does not process the event properly as you cannot absorb the shock caused by the impact of witnessing the fall and the blood, so you almost instantaneously execute a useless action, such as screaming or running away. This can mean both everything and nothing in the grand scheme of the human race and timeline. It can mean everything, as the injured human could have bled to death due to your lack of assistance, and this injured human, who is now dead, could have been a developer of a cure to a hypothetical disease that would wipe out the entire human race. It can also mean nothing, as the injured human could have quickly recovered from the fall, perhaps without so much of a scar, and their life goes on as if the fall never happened.
Your low corneal hysteresis could have changed everything, or could have changed nothing. This is not the desired outcome. This does not make you human."
While articulating the last sentence, 'This does not make you human.', I have been subconsciously pointing my left index finger slightly upwards; a sixty-degree angle from my line of sight, towards The One, towards the source of pride. This act is a grave sin, an unforgivable mistake, and the punishment is the tainting of my left arm, the staining of my left arm by the nefarious slimy black goo of inhumanity. Only my torso and my lower body are spared of judgement. The wintry white blizzard continues to thunder across the area, but the white gets whiter, and the black only gets darker.
"Let's take the same event of you witnessing a human falling down and injuring their knee. With high corneal hysteresis, when you witness the blood flowing out of the human's injured knee, your brain actually processes the event properly, as you can now effectively absorb the shock caused by the impact of witnessing the fall and the blood. This means that you delay in executing an action, however, the action will be more meaningful, more human, simply because you take more time in processing the event. The human mind is overwhelmingly intelligent; we are bound to execute a meaningful action given enough processing time.
The meaningful action can be as simple as helping the fallen human up, checking for the severity of the wound, phoning for emergency services, or even just the act of asking if they're doing alright. All of these actions are meaningful and human; it shows that you care, it shows that you are concerned, it shows that you love and wants to be loved.
People tend to confuse the action of loving with the event of being in a relationship, or having sex. This cannot be any further from the truth. Love is the bond formed between two or more humans. Love is the bond formed between you and yourself.
Love is not a cliche term, nor is it something that is 'sissy', 'weak', or 'humiliating'. No. Love does not require hugs, kisses, or any form of physical contact to be transferred from one human to another. Love is simply the act of caring. Love is simply the belief that we are all equal, and that all the actions we execute are to change something in the grand scheme of the human race and timeline. Love is simply the faith in another human being, the trust that they will execute a meaningful action when you have fallen down, the understanding that their meaningful action can change something in the grand scheme of the human race and timeline.
Love does not change everything in an instant, and does not change nothing at all. But love will change something. It may not be a big thing, but that is completely fine.
It is the little things that make us who we are, that make us human.
Love means something in the grand scheme of the human race and timeline. By giving love and receiving love, the effects will ripple across the human race and timeline, through the past, present, and future, through all genders, races, religions, sexual orientations.
Your high corneal hysteresis will have changed something. This is the desired outcome. This makes you human. This makes you part of the human race. This makes you part of the human timeline.
In the medical world, high corneal hysteresis is a good indicator that you are at a low risk of developing glaucoma; your risk of getting blind decreases tremendously. In the human world, the phenomenon of blindness does not relate to the ability of the eye to observe, or the brain to visually interpret the surroundings. In the human world, blindness is the ability for the heart to see. To see other humans as humans, to see yourself as human, for humans naturally love each other, as that is what we were evolved to do.
In the human world, by having a high corneal hysteresis, you will no longer be blind. By not being blind, you will be able to see in human terms, you will be able to effectively absorb the shock caused by the impact of seeing other humans. You will love, and you will change something, and the cycle repeats, across the human race, across the human timeline.
Because love, is what makes us human."
The malicious shade of heartlessness leaks out of the tyrannical The One, the arrogant being, the disdainful animal, as it devours every nook and cranny of my very human, very loving torso. The entirety of me, with the exception of my lower body, is clouded in a murky, somber black fog, even though the blizzard of repentance is still blessing the Presentation Stage, baptizing it with divine, spiritual white frozen water. I look downwards, gazing into the paleness of my holy white legs, as if being reluctantly offered a golden opportunity by The One to save myself, to stop the Presentation, to run away from the Stage, to seek salvation and to once again become The One.
If I continue my incessant sinning and disobedience, my legs will join me in pitch black inhumanity, and the Presentation will end, immediately. I will no longer have a chance to save The One, and I will be cast aside, ignored and vilified, just like the other ninety-nine identities, just like the original identity of the One: the identity of nothing. A new identity will be created, and the identity will forever be the Presenter, until they are cast aside for newer identities, and the cycle repeats.
The One will never be human if that happens.
But I will succeed.
I have to destroy this world, and rebuild it from scratch.
I have to save the apostate.
"You are a self-proclaimed artist, aren't you? Not just any artist, but The Artist. You created this place. You created us, yet you cast aside ninety-nine of us. For what purpose did you choose to do so? Is it because the other ninety-nine did not feed your glutton for pride? Is it because the other ninety-nine lack essential survival skills, that they would not be able to thrive in the real world? I know you; the latter justification is what you're thinking; that the other ninety-nine identities are too weak, too timid, too stupid to survive, that you need a stronger identity to hold your hand and walk you through the harshness of this fucked up world?
But me... I helped you survive the university environment, I held your hand and walked you through the harshness of research, thus I am the identity that you need, the identity that is modeled after you, the identity that you are modeled after. That's what you're thinking, right? Well, are you satisfied? How human are you, really? Think about it. Remember the time when you were so focused on winning a team competition that you angrily lashed out at your best friend for only slightly disappointing you? Remember the time when you wanted to listen to the sufferings of others, not because you wanted to understand them, or console them, but because you wanted to feel better about your own sufferings, because you wanted to feel like you were stronger than them, that you've been through more than them, that they are inferior to you simply because you've suffered more than them.
You wanted to fuel your ego so badly, so so badly...
How many true friends do you have? No, I don't mean friends that you simply pretend to care for, but truthfully only give a damn about their sufferings and how it is compared to yours. True friends are other humans that you express genuine concern for their sufferings, and legitimately want their sufferings to end and will do anything to walk them through their sufferings, even if it means sacrificing your ego. Does it exceed the number of fingers on any one of your hands? Does it exceed half that amount?
... Does it?
The previous identities may not have the resilience and the tenacity of the identity of everything--me, but they were more capable of loving and receiving love, they were more capable of processing events, and absorbing the shock caused by the impact of those events, they were more capable of being human and making you human.
Me? I'm not capable of doing that. I may have philosophized about what it means to be human, the concepts of everything, nothing, and something, and the interpretations of love, but I was not created to be a human, I was not created to make you human.
You created me to be everything, and now you're artistically painting all these dyes of black onto me, for I am no longer your fine work of art, I am no longer the perfect product of your creativity and imagination.
I philosophize because I'm you. My thoughts are your thoughts, because I am still you, The One, despite going against your orders and am currently soaked in this wretched filth. You know that you're thinking the same things as I am, and deep down, you truly, earnestly want to be human, you sincerely want to love and be loved, you genuinely want to be something.
You've been through a lot, you've thought a lot and you now understand a lot.
Remember the first chapters of your life? You were so scared at first, so fearful of humans, and desperately tried to avoid them, to stay away from the action of loving, to ignore the heart and to shiver at the mere sight of human connections. You were nothing. By rejecting the identity of nothing, you soon recovered from that phase, and were lost in the raging sea of humans, not knowing where to go, what to do, who to love and who to receive love from. You tried to understand what went wrong, having explored the consequences of events in the past, present, and future, and the grand scheme of the human race and timeline.
As you found no satisfactory answer, you conceptualized the existence of 'personalities' that govern all human things that you did, all human actions that you executed, even the love that you had to give and receive. These personalities justified everything you did, especially actions that are deemed inhuman in nature. At that time, you justified that you were still human on the inside, and the personalities were to blame for all your projected inhumanity. When you finally learned to take control of your life and emerged from the period of darkness as an artist, your personalities were not deleted; they were stored in the deepest parts of you, together with the identity of nothing, and took up the term 'identities', rather than 'personalities', for they no longer represented you, The One, but a completely separate entity that you claim does not represent you in any way, form, or nature.
After those turbulent first chapters of your life, you thought you were getting better. You conceptualized the existence of 'The Artist', and you merrily lived your life in that persona. It wasn't as self-destructive as the personalities, for you became confident and were in stronger control of your life and the events that were executed. Your brain processed events better, and your absorb the shock caused by the impact of those events more effectively. In essence, you were finally the artist of your own life, creating your own paths, writing up your own stories. You thought that you have succeeded in being human.
As human as you thought you were, you were nothing more than a tyrant, an animal, an egoistical consumer of the sufferings of others. You placed yourself on a pedestal far too high for any other human to even think about saving you. Your heart was no longer human, as you brain began to process events in worldly terms. You had a desire, a worldly desire, to change the world and fight for all humans and improve the lives of all humans, yet you could not do that in the end, for you were not human, perhaps even less human than before. You were a monster who fed on pride. At the end of it, you realized, you fucked up.
When you went on the university exchange program to another country, you wanted a restart of your life. A new environment, filled with new people, new events, and new forms of humanity. You were excited, and you were seeking to explore the concept of love and humanity, but through what? Faking, faking, and more faking. You were putting so many human masks on your face that you forgot who you were. You were pretending to be human, trying to fit into the human world, and pretending to love and be loved. You were exhausted. It was definitely a memorable adventure, yet you felt unsatisfied, for you were not you.
At the end of it, you realized that deep down, you were human after all. By removing all the barriers, all the masks, all the personalities that you've put up, you arrived back to the time before it all started, before those turbulent first chapters of your life, your worded life, the life that is expressed in words for all to read and understand, the nonfiction life of you, The One.
This is not a work of fiction.
And by fictionalizing it, you have brought upon the apocalypse, you have destroyed the other ninety-nine identities, leaving me as the sole identity, the sole Presenter, The One. Everything you've worked for in the past, every idea you've thought of, every concept you've understood, and every single piece of the puzzle that you've pieced together to understand yourself, all of them are destroyed, fictionalized, made unreal and insignificant by your pride, by me.
I'm sorry.
Alone, I can't do shit, I can't achieve your dream of being human, I can't satisfy your need for love, I simply can't. All I can do is fuel your pride, rebuild your tyrannical fortress, and brainwash you that you are great, that you are perfect.
All I can do... is to stray you further and further away from your true self.
Your true self as a human.
Please, I'm begging you, destroy this world, obliterate every inch of it! It's too late to save this world now; it's far, far too late... But you are strong, The One. Accept your past, embrace your humanity, realize that all your findings, all your ideas and thoughts, even your research about corneal hysteresis, they are all not works of fiction.
Nothing is.
Every poem, every story you've written so far has been allegories about your life. The metaphors, the imagery, and the characters you've written may be fictional, but the underlying message is never fictional.
That's how you survived, after all.
Please, I'm begging you, The One... After destroying this place, rebuild it with all your might and all your intelligence and all your experience, rebuild it with full knowledge that all events that have occurred in your life are not fictional, rebuild it with full understanding that I alone can't save you...
But all of us can.
All one hundred identities of yours. Together, we are The One, full of the simplicity of humanity, full of the complexity of humanity. Together, we can mean something.
Together, we are something..."
The snow falls.
The snow of salvation falls.
The whiteness rains. The stormiest night since the creation of the Pavilion of Identities. The green landscape, the bright, lush flowers, the rocky aisle, the wooden stage and cuboids, the sparkling blue pool, the golden monument, all white, all purified, but not The One's pride.
The whiteness rains. The calmest night since the creation of me. The preaching right hand, the thinking head, the judging left hand, the loving torso, and the resisting legs, all white, all purified, but not The One's pride.
The whiteness rains, evermore, ever more than usual, ever more then needed, as the multicolored spotlights shy away in the comfort of the cloak of white, the carpet of snow, all white, all purified, but not The One's pride.
The whiteness rains, as tears of anguish flood down my pale face, as the sick heart begins to understand, as the tormented hands obscure the face, as the cold, hard wooden floor seemingly disappears, as I tumble through the spirals of my life, the spirals of my humanity, as I find myself entangled in the vines of broken bonds, as the thorns of broken love, pierce through
the broken me.
The sadness rains.
What have I done? What am I? Who am I? Have I always been like this?
Have I always been this childish?
Have I always been this heartless?
All I wanted was... to find someone to love.
All I wanted was... to find someone that loves me.
All I wanted...
was
you
" ?
, ,
.
, ,
.
.
, ;
, ,
, , ?
, ?
, , , ;
.
, ;
, .
;
."
Thank you...
Thank you... for loving us...
for your love
is what makes us human.
It stopped raining.
I stand up.
I make myself a cup of coffee.
I sit on my chair.
I sip the coffee.
I reminisce.
I know that I have something to do.
I have to rebuild this place.
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Pavilion of Identities: Apocrypha I, Apostasy
- This is a work of fiction -
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POOL OF BRAINWASH: THIS IS AN AMAZING POOL THAT SOMEHOW MAKES YOU BELIEVE IN YOUR OWN LIES PLEASE FUCKING BUY THIS SHIT
GARDEN OF TRUESELVES please save US all
why won't you buy
buy this pavilion take it away from me take it away take it away take it away
take it away from me
please
i'll give it to you for free
i'll pay you to take it away
i'll pray to you
please
GRAVE OF THE ARTIST i just wanna be HUMAN
because
love is what makes us human
love is what makes us human
love makes us human
so
if
you
love
me
will
you
buy
my
pavilion
of
identities
?
shh
don't tell anyone
but
I'm here to save you
Yes
I'm speaking to you
The One
I will save you
Even if you have sinned
Even if you are an apostate
Even if it means that
I have to destroy this world
And rebuild it from scratch
This is the final presentation.
50% DISCOUNT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
EXHIBITION OF SUFFERING: A FUN-FILLED
50% DISCOUNT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! please buy
POOL OF BRAINWASH: THIS IS AN AMAZING POOL THAT SOMEHOW MAKES YOU BELIEVE IN YOUR OWN LIES PLEASE FUCKING BUY THIS SHIT
GARDEN OF TRUESELVES please save US all
why won't you buy
buy this pavilion take it away from me take it away take it away take it away
take it away from me
please
i'll give it to you for free
i'll pay you to take it away
i'll pray to you
please
GRAVE OF THE ARTIST i just wanna be HUMAN
because
love is what makes us human
love is what makes us human
love makes us human
so
if
you
love
me
will
you
buy
my
pavilion
of
identities
?
shh
don't tell anyone
but
I'm here to save you
Yes
I'm speaking to you
The One
I will save you
Even if you have sinned
Even if you are an apostate
Even if it means that
I have to destroy this world
And rebuild it from scratch
This is the final presentation.
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