вторник, 9 октября 2007 г.

thestrumpetfate

At present, I should be working.  Politics, I suspect.  An essay of some description, I know.  Boring as hell, I also know.

As it is, I have decided to write an anonymous letter to an anonymous person in as anonymous a fashion as possible, the latter simply because I wanted to complete the power of three.  Could it be for you, this letter?  Read into it what you will.  Or, alternatively, read it on the surface.

Or, even better, stop reading now and save five minutes of your life, silly person.

Dear sir/madame/etc,

I do not know you, nor you me, I suspect.  This in and of itself does not matter.  While non-acquaintance may seem at first an insurmountable barrier to our no doubt fruitful future friendship, I assure you it is not.  In this truly anonymous day and age, it is possible for two beings, stripped of all thought, feeling or self-aware individuality to meet by the most unusual means, and still be acknowledged as vaguely valid.  I am sure, quite sure that meeting someone through an anonymous letter on an almost entirely anonymous blog from an anonymous nobody wallowing in their own undeserving self-pity on the edge of London will not be considered unusual - save, perhaps, that it was still written as a letter. (Maybe I should phrase this in txt.  Would that be more usual, do you think?).  Acceptable, maybe not, as to be properly accepted by society would be to compromise what society views as individuality.  And, individuality - sorry, that should really be individualism, but -isms have been banned outside of Iran and the Mid-West since 1990 - is sacred, isn't it?  We couldn't possibly compromise that, no.

We are making progress, I think.  Good!  I have been neglecting my good manners, such as they are, for entirely too long now.  Allow me to introduce myself properly.  I am me.  Ego, self, I.  Actually, I suppose that's not strictly true.  If ego is taken to be the purely selfish part of the mind, that identifies only with itself and none other, than it cannot just be me writing this.  By necessity, it must also the society that has acted upon and made me, the environment that is acting upon me now, and probably a thousand other factors I haven't studied enough years to fathom, or even name.  Thus, I am not really me, I am me.

I hope that made sense for you.  I would like it explained if you did.

And you?  For me, this is ultimately the greatest mystery of the letter.  Who are you?  A human being of some form, I would hope.  I quiver with barely suppressed disappointment at the idea that this, scant fifteen minutes work though it is, is actually addressed to a computer.  Now, if you are a computer, or indeed any other form of mechanical appliance, I mean no offence by this.  However, I would ideally hope that this is meant for someone not only sentient, amiable and perhaps even intelligent - but also of holding a conversation with me, full stop.

If, however, you are a human being, I fear the onus is now on you.  Short of telling you who, what and why you are myself, an action possibly regarded as impolitic at the very least, I can provide no more information on who you are.  Thus, you must tell me.  RSVP, as they say.

Yours faithfully,

Nobody,  Anybody and Everybody.

Hmm.  Not quite what I envisioned when I strted; I'm not sure I'm happy with it.  This said, I am tempted to send it from a postbox somewhere in the middle of the City, with the return address as, "c/o [The local post office]", to a completely random address, and see what happens.

Knowing people, nothing....

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