:: Idle Neurosis ::

:: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 ::

Now, the average school student today is aware of the complex forces, movements, and deep currents that motivate wars and spark revolutions. but when he was in school the world seemed far more open to its own fictionalization. history was a different business then: taught with one eye on narrative, the other on drama, no matter how unlikely or chronologically inaccurate. According to the schema, and the Russian Revolution began because everyone hated Rasputin. the Roman Empire declined and fell because Antony was having it off with Cleopatra. Henry V triumphed at Agincourt because the french were too busy admiring their own outfits.

"ahh, now, you see, we've been through this, and my thought is this: there's no smoke without fire," he would say, looking impressed by the wisdom of his own conclusion. "know what i mean?" this was one of his preferred analytical tools when confronted with news stories, historical events, and the tricky day-to-day process of separating fact from fiction.
there was something so vulnerable in the way he relied on this conviction, that i never had the heart to disabuse him of it. why tell him that there can be smoke without fire as surely as there are deep wounds that draw no blood?

it wasnt the full story. the matters can be fully investigated but the fact remains: full stories are as rare as honesty, precious as diamonds. if you are lucky enough to uncover one, a full story will sit on your brain like lead. they are difficult. they are long-winded. they are epic. they are full of possibly particular information. you don't find them in a dictionary.

the truth does not depend on what you read. like a whisper by an intoxicated, incompetent person, the truth can be passed down a line of subsequent historians, and it begins to mutate, bend, and receede as the whisper continues. then it becomes a story which clings like a gigantic misquote, as solid and as seemingly irremovable as a misconception which was created solely to uphold a person's reputation and his/her overblown sense of their own importance.

well, lets not get into the nature of TRUTH. then you do not have to draw with my cheese and i can avoid eating your chalk. but the truth is the truth, no matter how nasty it may taste.
stellar lady:: Anonymous 9:00 PM [+] ::
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