milan says nudity is a shroud
it's difficult to imagine subtleties in a place like riyadh but more often now i think of that society as a living metaphor-- i think that of any society that understands spin i see people that are so war hungry--and not just neo-conservatives necessarilly. there are the people who want revolutions too and the people who talk about death matter of factly and a greater good. i think they're all the same. i think they're so afraid of having something taken away from them i think they don't know what they have because if they did, they'd know that it can't be taken away i think it's foolish to think you can categorically know of a greater anything, because you're tiny and flawed and ephemeral and that's scary and i know that nobody wants to be alone and i know that feeling of comfort that washes over you when a stranger articulates the same thing you're thinking but that sameness is only beautiful because it's an accident, which makes it feel true when you turn into a club, into an army--you make that sameness a lie and you poison that feeling of comfort with fear i've covered up and i've been naked and that shroud is always there, there's no system of law that'll take it away--just a nice moment with a likemind, and when that moment passes the shroud will fall over you again i don't mean to sound like some fatalistic depressive, i just want to say what i've learned--- if i had spent more time learning to love myself behind this shroud, even appreciating this shroud-- instead of chasing a feeling of security that's only meaningful when i don't expect it anyway, i could've saved myself and other people a lot of pain |