I remember as a teenager listening to friends relating the previous evenings drunken escapades and such, and thinking: That's all bollocks. It wasn't anything like as good as that. Or that was a lie. And there they all were, the listeners, all seemingly colluding in these "monstrous" untruths, and embellishments, etc etc etc. And they'd all join in.
Now I can see, of course, it was just story telling... or is it "just"? Could it rather be "just" laying down the ground rules for a future filled with stories. How many actually believe these stories? I suspect these stories become truths, in the sense that people believe them to be objective. And to dismantle one, is to bring down the whole ediface. And my god, when we've spent a life time constructing that...
Or maybe I'm the weird one, hanging onto some notion of provable truths.
But because there was so much lying and deceit and denial within what I laughingly refer to as my family, "truth" became really important to me - sacred - and I obsessed about it - I try to hang on to it. Even when I know it's impossible. Even when I know I lie to myself.
When others deviated from it, start to tell these "lies", I became very upset. Still do. This was the tactic used within my family to cast me as mad, if I ever had the timerity to question their madness. To bring attention to facts that seemed as plain as day. When I retreated into myself - became mute - insular - a kafkaesque punk... It was said: "Well, Stephen is just like that". Just.
To this day, they are wary of me. My father went to his grave denying the reality of our family. Of himself. He, they, can't see me. Almost literally. I've seen them no more than three times in the last 25 years. There was a gap of 14 years. They don't understand why. Just.
A few years back I asked my father a question about why we moved around so much, three continents in 10 years. He shouted at me: "Are you blaming me for that!?". I was fucking 9 years old. Who was responsible. Me, it seems. For what, I'm not quite sure.
Ah, may father, that's another story. But I can only try to piece together his story - a story - in the end my story - and it's lies. It says everything about me, and only a little about him. My photographs of walls and under bridges in the place he grew up in, east London, is my search for his ghost. As if the crumbling bricks will reveal a truth. They are full of ghosts. I'm full of ghosts.
So when I see it now - truth - I'm moved beyond words. I am drawn. It illuminates. I soar. I am so proud of those who achieve it, if only for a moment, unearthed from the myths of their lives. And they open up. Its not shocking what is revealed. But it is. It has an extraordinary affect.
But what do you do with it when you find it? How do you act?
And why is it so damn scary to be open and honest? Most of all, with yourself.
Now I can see, of course, it was just story telling... or is it "just"? Could it rather be "just" laying down the ground rules for a future filled with stories. How many actually believe these stories? I suspect these stories become truths, in the sense that people believe them to be objective. And to dismantle one, is to bring down the whole ediface. And my god, when we've spent a life time constructing that...
Or maybe I'm the weird one, hanging onto some notion of provable truths.
But because there was so much lying and deceit and denial within what I laughingly refer to as my family, "truth" became really important to me - sacred - and I obsessed about it - I try to hang on to it. Even when I know it's impossible. Even when I know I lie to myself.
When others deviated from it, start to tell these "lies", I became very upset. Still do. This was the tactic used within my family to cast me as mad, if I ever had the timerity to question their madness. To bring attention to facts that seemed as plain as day. When I retreated into myself - became mute - insular - a kafkaesque punk... It was said: "Well, Stephen is just like that". Just.
To this day, they are wary of me. My father went to his grave denying the reality of our family. Of himself. He, they, can't see me. Almost literally. I've seen them no more than three times in the last 25 years. There was a gap of 14 years. They don't understand why. Just.
A few years back I asked my father a question about why we moved around so much, three continents in 10 years. He shouted at me: "Are you blaming me for that!?". I was fucking 9 years old. Who was responsible. Me, it seems. For what, I'm not quite sure.
Ah, may father, that's another story. But I can only try to piece together his story - a story - in the end my story - and it's lies. It says everything about me, and only a little about him. My photographs of walls and under bridges in the place he grew up in, east London, is my search for his ghost. As if the crumbling bricks will reveal a truth. They are full of ghosts. I'm full of ghosts.
So when I see it now - truth - I'm moved beyond words. I am drawn. It illuminates. I soar. I am so proud of those who achieve it, if only for a moment, unearthed from the myths of their lives. And they open up. Its not shocking what is revealed. But it is. It has an extraordinary affect.
But what do you do with it when you find it? How do you act?
And why is it so damn scary to be open and honest? Most of all, with yourself.
1 comment:
just jump in with both feet!!
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