there’s a little bit of rain coming down. just a little bit. not enough to get me to get out of here. but maybe it’ll pick up. we just don’t know. there’s no way of knowing what’s going to happen in the future. even the weather app would be a totally insufficient support for a thing like that. i’m going to continue sitting here unless and until it starts really pouring down.

anyway, the mortifying ordeal of being known. it really is fucking mortifying, honestly. and why is that? why do i feel the literal mortification every time i put myself out there, every time i write something in words and share those words with individuals? is there some kind of death that happens when you allow yourself to be known? when you collapse your own waveform into a particle for someone else to understand?

in this case, it was sending an email to m▒▒▒ ▒▒▒▒▒ from c▒▒▒▒▒ ▒▒▒▒▒ school, which i am trying... which i have... i have put a lot of thought into returning to that place. the new kacey musgraves album is absolutely no help. how am i supposed to not romanticize my small town and going back to it, when there is this genius album called middle of nowhere?

the rain is coming down too hard. i can’t brave this. i gotta go inside.

the keyboard is still a little wet. where was i? the mortifying ordeal of being known.

the ordeal of being known is truly mortifying, and i have to ask you why. i think of how b▒▒ ▒▒▒▒▒▒ once told me that i had to cocoon myself back in the day when i was a gay kid and hadn’t come out to anyone, and it was protective, and it was a way of safely getting to know myself before letting other people get to know me, because it might not have been safe for them to fully know.

but when you’ve gotten in the habit of cocooning yourself, it becomes something like a security blanket that was helpful when you were unsafe but now is just a burden. i don’t want to let go of it. i don’t want to let go of it!! it feels mortifying to even consider letting go of it.

i feel some phantom drops of water falling into my hair, but i know that i’m indoors, and there’s no possible way for water to reach me right now. there’s just no way!

and yes.... the ordeal, the whole ordeal. there is a reason why i delete all my posts on my neocities feed. i don’t leave them up, and it passes for a stylistic choice, for some kind of........ you know, some cool thing that i do, but the truth is, i can’t stand the feeling of posts being left up on the feed. i can’t stand the feeling. i don’t know what it is about it; i have only to believe that it’s the mortifying ordeal of being known. to be known... in any possible manner... is so fucking tough, bro. it’s so tough to be known, even a little bit.

it’s tough to be known by the district clerk of my k–12 public school. it’s absolutely mortifying to even suggest to her that i’m thinking of coming home in the fall. it’s totally mortifying. it’s mortifying as well to consider sharing this information with people on the internet. it’s mortifying to think of blurring out some of the names in here for anonymization....

most mortifying of all would be for me to reveal my own name. can you imagine the mortification that would come if you all knew my real name?

but then...... it’s... not real. it’s not real. identity is not real! identity is not real. and it becomes fair game to tell anyone’s story as soon as they’ve died. so really, the only thing separating you from knowing who it is that wrote this is my own death. and the line between my life and my death is so thin as to be nonexistent. so what the hell even is it?

mortification implies that there is a kind of death, a kind of turning something alive into something dead.

the mortifying ordeal of being known represents a very thin line. is it just a fear of death? is it knowing that you will be lain bare by the time you die, and is it an avoidance of that death? is it ultimately a fear of death? is this fear of death the thing that underlies all of the smaller fears in our lives? i’m not sure. i’m not sure how to connect these two things: the mortifying ordeal of being known with the mortification, the literal mortification, that comes with death.

to be known is to be reduced to a piece of particulate matter. is that not the case? to be known is to be a particle. you must be observed to be known, and to be observed necessitates a collapse of waveform into particle. so then, the mortifying ordeal of being known is really the mortifying ordeal of being reduced to a particle.

i don’t want to be known. i don’t want to be reduced in that way!!! i’m still alive. i don’t want people to know me, because they don’t know me. even i don’t know me.

is it possible to be known while still existing as a waveform? i suppose light is a waveform and a particle. what have we to learn about ourselves from light? i know that light illuminates other things.... light illuminates things that are already mortified, that are already particles. but then, i am made of particles, and i am alive, and i can be illuminated by light... so what does that say about us? are we waveforms and particles, like light? are we made of light or some gay shit like that?

ugly i’m not sure how to wrap my head around this mortifying ordeal of being known. i think the only cure for it might be to refuse to let yourself be known insofar as being known necessitates a collapse of your beautiful waveform into an ugly particle. i don’t want to be a particle. i want to be a waveform. i think that’s what being alive is, and it makes me feel more alive to say it like this. it makes me feel more alive to tell you right here that i am a waveform, and that i cannot be known.

i can’t be known right now. the thing i’m writing can’t even be known, because it’s still getting written. each letter i type makes the thing more established, sets the whole argument in amber, but at the same time there is an alive part of me who continues writing it, who could change course at any moment. i could finish up with this train of thought and be on to another without your having any say in the matter. you could still be wanting to hear more about the mortifying ordeal, and then the ordeal has already resolved.

by writing about the ordeal, i have processed it, i have grasped it, i have identified the trouble with it, i’ve figured it out. i’ve got it all figured out. i’m cured. i’ve figured it out, and it’s settled. its totally settled. i’m fine with it now. i don’t need to know anything more about it.

that thing ... every time i think about how i sent a▒▒▒▒ that thing i wrote, and how he heart reacted it, i get a chill down my spine. i involuntarily roll my eyes at my own cringe. i feel totally mortified. i feel like i’m going to fully die from the shame and embarrassment and the being known. i’m going to die!!!! each time i share something with someone.

the only thing that prevents me from actually dying is the fact that i’m still alive. each time i am known, it’s just one state of me that is known. because look at me now. i could say that i have no identification with that piece of writing. i could say that there is no medicine nowhere, that medicine is a construct, that there is a deep sickness and there is no cure for it, that no amount of medicine is going to do anything, that medicine is futile because, ultimately, there is no cure for death. in that case, a▒▒▒▒ wouldn’t know me at all.

i only want us to be more aware of death. i want us to spend all of our waking hours getting mortified. i want to be known over and over again, violently, for the rest of my life, so that i can feel how it feels to die in every second, so i can be prepared for that ultimate act of mortification. body death, brain death, heat death of the universe as it exists in my single organism, as it exists in each particle that makes me up. each atom, each cell, each tissue, organ, my digestive system, everything. it will all die, and i want to keep preparing myself for the death.

the mortifying ordeal of being known is actually a handy preparation for death. anything that is mortifying is worth experiencing. i would quite like to be mortified today. i want to be mortified. i want to be turned into something dead so that i can be reborn in the next moment. because i’m going to keep on living, and it is only the illusion of mortification... a petit mort. an orgasm. i’m cumming in each moment that i get known. it’s an orgasm, it’s a height reached, it’s a roundabout exited, it’s a clock ticking, it’s cum shooting out of a urethra, it’s a clit trembling... and all that type of stuff.

what a beautiful thing it is to be mortified, and what a mortifying ordeal it is to be known.