if everything you do has a hidden meaning

addendum 17/6/15: if i don't hide it how will you know it's the truth

originally this post was in japanese and the english translation hidden as white text... in the end i switched the two

Q: If you're gonna post it anyway why would you hide the most important part like that?
i was worried that if i just put it out there without hiding it in some way people might mistake it for a fiction piece or imaginary soliloquy, but it's neither of those things. the story is 100% true, told in a way that sounds like it's made up. i was worried you'd dismiss it as fiction, instead of a very private and personal part of me that i usually never share or show anyone. Which is why it took so long for me to finally publish it.

Q: Why did you decide to publish the english version in the end?
Because I wanted it to be found. I wanted you to find it, and to read it. But at the same time I wanted you to know that it was real, and at the time i didn't think the two would be possible. I thought the only way for you to know it was real would be for you to find it for yourself. And the only way for you to find it would be for me to not hide it. I felt the only way for you to realise that what I am telling you is not a hoax, not a scam but something real I have kept hidden from everyone and that i am taking a huge risk by sharing this would be for you to search for it. But even though I wanted that - I desperately wanted you to find it -- to find out, i didn't trust you to search for it. i didn't think you would bother looking for the translation or hidden text.

Q: Why not?
Because I wouldn't have thought to look for it either

Q: What made you think I wouldn't believe you?
Reasons I thought you might you think the story was made up: 1. there is an underlying paranoia that drives everything i do 2. the text was originally italicized, which i normally reserve for imaginary dialogue, overheard snippets or quotations - basically anything i don't want attributed to me 3. and the voice isn't written in my voice - i never say things like 'it sounds strange, i know' or 'you're probably thinking'. that's just not the way I speak. it's a borrowed voice. a way of distancing myself from the truth enough to say it.

(There is something fucking frightening about honesty. something about the prospect of an honest conversation that just makes me reflexively want to shit my pants. I rarely say anything honest without pretending that it came from somewhere else. it's the whole dropping your defences completely that gets to me. it requires such vulnerability. the stakes are too high - the risk is enormous. it is dangerous - not in the 'fun', 'exciting' sense of the word. more like being trapped in a dark room with the smell of blood and an unidentifiable sound kind of dread.)

I don't know what it is about our culture that has conditioned us to discount/ to be suspicious to the point of paranoia of anything obvious - if you give it away, no one will take it, but charge 5 bucks for it and people will line up to buy. 'Sometimes the only way you can tell someone the truth is by manipulation' .... i don't know if i really believe that.

the way i see it, there are two terrible things that can happen whenever you tell someone something very deep and personal and capital R Real about yourself. The first is that they believe you, but they're not the right person to tell. they misunderstand. they miss the point. you give them your soul, but they're not sure what to do with it. The other, maybe more terrible thing that can happen is that they think it's a joke, or a story, or a parable, or a sermon. they don't see that you're desperate for them to see how desperate you are. you want to break through destroy and subvert the miserable masquerade the tyranny of pretence that annihilates any possibility of anything real and sincere and  meaningful -  you just want to share something - for once in each of your lives - that precious something not drenched in cynicism and contempt and envy and fear and self-consciousness and self-doubt and self-loathing and so you tear out the realest (how do you know its real if it doesn't hurt) part of you, still dripping with blood, hoping that the red on your hands will convince them - and they clap for you. you offer them your soul but they think it's a show.

if i had said all this plainly would you have believed me








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(footnote: red like a homicide: there's a reason why most greek and shakespearean tragedies back in the day involved a bunch of dudes dying and i think it's because they knew back then that their best shot at reaching out and connecting with an audience and dragging out a genuine visceral response from them was via depictions of death and murder of characters that the audience had formed  attachments to.

for some reason i feel these devices don't really work as well anymore - i mean they still work - but i feel they're less potent, not as effective. i think that's where post modernism and post post modernism and david foster wallace all come from; all the pyrotechnics and meticulous contortionist sentences just attempts to solve a frustrated discourse between narrative and reader - he's not posturing, admiring himself or trying to impress - he's desperately trying to get the reader's attention just long enough for her to hear him out. I love you! cries the author, but she pretends not to hear and looks back at her phone instead)