The sky is still luminous. In these weeks since the Shadow lifted, life has felt easy-easy. Easy, as it once did long ago. One of my friends who reads this blog says I am sitting here grieving, and this is true, but life still feels easy-easy, because I am here again.
And I know many things which I do not say, because the objective in grief is to bleed a wound clean, not to open a vein. I will say this, though – the wounds I have sustained in life, have all had to do with being who I am, namely, a person interested in words and ideas.
This is why the sentence, “because you can think, you must be unable to feel,” is so painful. It is particularly so when those who pronounce it believe they are the first to say it to me. I have been taunted with it, early and often. I believe this sentence was invented for self-alienated individuals. I do not believe it applies to me. I think it is merely a strategy to stop original thought.
I have test driven this sentence so much that I have worn it out. I am sure I am right to reject it, but this sentence is still a siren song. Taking it into serious consideration, accepting it as a description of myself, was the first step down the rabbit hole of my perdition.
I told my Reeducator that: 1. I knew I must be who I was in order to be at all, and 2. I even wanted to be who I was, but 3. at the same time certain experiences had taught me that being who I was, would place me in very grave danger.
I said that 4. it was not easy to measure out each day enough of myself in order to be, but not so much that it was not safe. And 5. it appeared to me that this was an old survival strategy, useful in its time but now an impediment. As such, 6. it was a thing I wished to shed.
He decided I did in fact need to become someone else. I should suppress certain interests and inclinations, and acquire others. It was terrible news, as my worst fear had been confirmed. And I did, at that point, try to take on other identities. This endeavor, of course, only placed me in a concave mirror: a systematic deformation.
The Shadow lifted because I had started over, with my original sentence. I am who I am. This may have been dangerous at one time. It is not now, so I can stop struggling with this phantom demon.
I started by speaking as myself here. I began at Zero. Tomorrow it will have been one year. I used to be more tentative, but I am far less so now. I think it is going well.
A float just went by, and there are Indians coming!
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
keep believing in yourself. nobody knows your story but you.
Siiii Nez. One of the current urban legends, I think, is that people do not know themselves and need to be shown. I do not know whether that is actually true of people, but it would explain the penchant for what you have called Paradigm.
I notice also that people do not want their business known. I think the reason for this is that they do not want others to force the stories into Paradigm. That, in any case, is the only reason I do not give more information than I do.