The Devil’s Whispers

I know what the devil whispers to me, but I often wonder what the devil whispers to others, what the devil whispers to others about me. If someone usually warm is suddenly aloof, I'll wonder if the devil has whispered to them. Although that thought too could sometimes be something the devil whispers to me. As in when I get into a fight with someone because of what I think they thought, because of what I think the devil whispered to them; then the devil has whispered to me about what the devil whispered to them. But sometimes it isn't the devil's whispers, like when I try to be nicer to someone usually warm but suddenly aloof because I think maybe the devil whispered to them. It isn't the devil's whispers either when I think their bad behavior is from the devil's whispers instead of thinking this person is behaving badly because of their bad traits, since I'm then giving them the benefit of the doubt, which I doubt would be the devil's whispers. 

The Limits

"I don't know, and neither do you." 

"Neither do they." 

"But you don't know whether they do or don't know, and neither do I." 

"So what do we know?" 

"We know that we don't know. We also know that you think they don't know and I think they do know, but we don't know and can't know whether or not they do know, and this is all that we can know." 

[Posted these six sentences on Instagram in June.]

Thoughts on the blog

I'm wondering about this blog. I really feel it's time for a new social media platform, that takes the best from all the other platforms. For now, I will continue using this, although this probably isn't even social media, or I'm not using it as such by visiting other blogs, engaging with other bloggers, etc. 
Wondering if Tumblr would have been a better choice. The possibility still remains, to create a blog there too and link it to the other platforms. 

Also wondering what I should post here from my notes, and what to post from here on Instagram. The Neck post got more hits than others, but I don't think I'd post it there. I am conscious of who follows me where (family, friends, etc.) and that determines what I post and where sometimes. 

Update

Removed the Like button as it didn't seem to be working, (not because
no one was using it thank you very much).

Do unto others…

She often said how she liked it when older people didn’t treat her like they were much older, like the age gap between them was not as great as it was, she liked it so much that she too didn’t treat them like they were much older, she liked it so much that she treated younger people like they were much younger, like she was much older, like the age gap between them was much greater than it was.

[Edit: 20-10-2022]

Heresy

I've never heard this before, and you should be very careful about thinking things I've never heard before, because if I've never heard it before then there must be good reason why I've never heard it before, but if I do hear it even once from anyone who isn't you at least, then you'd be allowed to think it because then I would have heard it before. 

Posted on Instagram. 

Edited on 28-09-2022.

Considerate

She wants to play chess with him. He wants to jump off the balcony. She says they'll play a game or two once she's back from the laundry. He wonders if that will give him enough time to finish his pre-jump preparations. She's gone to bring clean sheets. He doesn't want to leave a mess behind; that would be too inconsiderate. 

[Posted on Instagram.]

Reciprocity

She liked his paintings. She liked what he painted and she liked how he painted. She liked him, and she wrote to him to tell him how much she liked what he painted and how he painted, and to show him a few of her own paintings. She was pleasantly surprised when he wrote back to her, but bitterly disappointed when he didn't like her paintings as much as she liked his. She didn't like him after that, nor what he painted, nor how he painted. This surprised him, since what he painted and how he painted had not changed; he didn't know he had to like another person's paintings for them to like his own. 

Edit: 15-09-2022

(Now posted on Instagram.)

A Traumatic Sentence

I heard a sentence many years ago which traumatized me and which I've never been able to forget. Someone said, "She thinks she's good at what she does, that is the problem." It wasn't said about me, but I forever live in fear of the same thing being thought about me, whispered behind my back. The only way I've known to escape this is to never think I'm good at what I do. A forced but genuine humility, which, though crippling, has its advantage. Better to be good and doubt it than bad and have no doubts. 

Posted on Instagram. 

Face Masks

She hated wearing face masks. She was an artist, her face her artistic masterpiece. And like all artists, she wanted to show off her art and gauge people's reactions. She hated being forced into anonymity, just another face mask in the mass of face masks. Those around her shared her feelings: they too hated masks on her face. They loved looking at her face maskless, with their own faces masked, secretly gazing, lost in a sea of anonymous art lovers. 

Posted on Instagram. 

Familiarity

When you see someone you don't know who looks like someone you do know, even if not personally, it feels as if that familiar person's spirit is in an unfamiliar person's body, and as you observe this person you don't know waiting for the person you do know to manifest in their words and mannerisms, you're filled with familiar feelings: if you like the person you know, you find yourself liking the person you don't know, if you mistrust the person you know you look at this stranger with suspicion, waiting for the same flaws to appear, and so it goes, as if you really believe (even though you don't) that the spirit of the person you do know is in the body of this person you don't know. 

Posted on Instagram. 

Jigsaw

I found myself one day as a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. I was one piece among numerous others, each of us unique in our combination of shape and colors. Each of us looked for its place in the puzzle; that we each had a place in the puzzle we somehow knew instinctively. When we found our place we sometimes didn't know which side went into which space, and it took us a while to figure it out. But we did know, again instinctively, that there was a right side and a right space, and that one of us could be in the right place but not positioned in the right way and therefore would not fit. We also knew that all of us were essential, and it was only with all of us that the whole puzzle would be complete. 

[Posted on Instagram.]

Between the Fake and the Real

It was hard to tell whose lips were real anymore. This was especially sad for people whose lips were real but assumed to be fake by everyone. Real people who looked fake were sadder than fake people who looked fake. Fake people who looked real were the lucky ones, definitely luckier than the real ones who looked fake. And real people who looked real? They probably wished they looked like the fake people who looked real.

Internalizing Ideas

But once we read a word or see an image, do we not then internalize them? Do they not become part of our imagination and our lexicon, whether we agree with the ideas in these words and images or not? For example, perhaps your answer to these questions is no, and yet some instance in the future will remind you of these questions. This would, I believe, prove my point, since you have internalized the questions, whether you change your answer or not.

This is how we sometimes confuse other people's thoughts for our own, after having internalized them and forgetting their source of origin. Like someone who hears an opinion from you and comes to you later expressing the same opinion hesitantly, as if after arriving at his conclusion due to his laborious research, he worries that you may disagree for dogmatic reasons. He asks you after he relays your opinion back to you: "Do you agree?" And to avoid a scene, and at the expense of your ego, you say yes, you agree with him.

Excerpt from a story in my notes, written in 2014. Posted now on Instagram. 

Blindness

I thought he was blind and I could see. Everyone else thought he was blind and we could see, too. He didn't think he was blind, he thought we couldn't see what he could see. He was surer than I was sure, and this made me more unsure, especially when I didn't have anyone else around to confirm what I'd see. I wondered, if he was so certain, if we were each so certain of what we were seeing, how could I tell which of us could see? And the further I was from everyone else, the less I was able to tell if it was only me. 

Edited: 17-8-2022

The Neck

He fell in love with her neck. He didn't know he was only in love with her neck. No one had ever told him you could fall in love with a neck, or with a single part of another person. He always thought when you fall in love it's the whole of the person that you fall in love with. He went on thinking this even when he fell in love with her neck, he thought he was in love with her. He expressed to her what he thought he felt, and she fell in love too. She fell in love with what he said to her. The feelings were not mutual; it wasn't his neck she was in love with, and it wasn't what she said to him that he was in love with. It was also only part of him that was in love with her neck. Other parts of him were indifferent. The other parts of her bored the other parts of him, and the neck was not redeeming enough. But his love for her neck blinded him. He didn't know that if her neck was on any other person (maybe not any but at least many others) he would follow the neck, and he would think it was this other person he was in love with. This feeling was mutual; if (almost) anyone else had expressed his feelings to her the same way she would have fallen in love too. And so it goes, each of them confusedly loving parts of each other, thinking they're in love with all of each other. 

Edit: 30-09-2022

Lines

It's fine to look with your eyes. Then it's just looking. But if you pull out your phone and use it to look, then that is suspicious. It's fine if you remember it after, that's just your memory. But if you record it and look at it later, that is just strange. It's fine if you squint your eyes to see because you're distant, but if you pull out your binoculars to look, well that's just psychotic.

On Types

She's looking through my books for certain types of books while I'm looking through other types of books. She laughs and praises God as she points to the type of books she's looking through, which she thinks of as praiseworthy, in contrast to the type I'm looking through, forgetting that all these books (the ones she's looking through and the ones I'm looking through) are mine. She borrows a book from me; she would like to read this book; she would like to be the type of person who would read this book, and she thinks I'm the type of person who wouldn't read this book, again forgetting it's from me that she's borrowing this book. When she tries to read it, she finds it not to her liking; she had expected much more from the book. Years go by, and I ask for my book back. She's forgotten that she borrowed it from me; she's forgotten her impression of the book when she did try to read it, she remembers though, that she wants to be the type to have read this book (and liked it), and she remembers that she thinks I'm the type to not like this book, again forgetting the book is mine, and she says: "That book is pure gold."

Edited: 14-11-2022

Neurosis

While one man, feeling physically ill, spends his time recuperating and concentrating on becoming better, looking forward to the return of his good health, another man, neurotic and plagued with malicious thoughts, when suffering from the same physical illness, spends his time consumed with his rage against everyone who isn't expressing compassion towards him, relishing the idea of a future conversation in which he'll be able to bring up this moment of neglect on their part, to add to his list of imagined grievances.

(Written in 2014. Posted now on Instagram.)

On Losing Selves

They lost themselves to each other. "No, they

lost parts of themselves to each other. They lost

parts of themselves, but they found other parts of

themselves. They gave parts of themselves to

parts of each other, but they mistook their partial

selves as whole selves, thus thinking they gave

themselves to each other." They lost parts of

themselves to other parts of themselves, but they

gave what they found to each other, so they lost

their whole selves, to each other. They lost the

selves they had previously known, and they lost

the selves they had found.

Edited: 21-7-2022

Posted on Instagram. 

Before I Forget

I almost forgot this thought I wanted to write about forgetting thoughts I want to write. I wondered, before I forgot, how many thoughts have occurred to me in my life that were (and still are) worth writing but which I never wrote down so I've completely forgotten. 

What a loss these thoughts are, if they ever existed. 

[Edited 7-12-2022. Now on Instagram, where you can like it.]

The Liars

A liar will lie to protect another liar's lie. This, the liar will do, not for an affinity felt between liars but because the liar wants you to believe his own lies if he ever uses a similar lie. If you doubt the other liar's lies, the liar will throw doubts at your doubts, to make you question yourself if it is ever his own lies that draw your suspicions. If you are good at discerning the truth this puts the liar at risk, so the liar tries to damage your truth-detection skills, or failing that, to make you doubt yourself. For his own deceptions to work on you, the liar needs your views of reality to be distorted. For his own lies to work on you, the liar needs you to believe all the other lies. 

Edited: 24-8-2022