naked

when was the first time you realized that people were naked under all of their clothes? i mean, not just cognitively aware of it, but viscerally aware. wasn't that an "eye opening" realization? it was like, suddenly, everyone had a secret that they were dangling right under your nose, concealing something right beneath their clothes... this was the moment when you realized that people were not what they appeared to be, and (not in a necessarily bad way) that they were BY NATURE duplicitous because: 1) there was a clothed person (the social appearance), and 2) there was the unclothed person (the person "underneath"). keep in mind that this was a realization of IRREDUCIBLE DUPLICITY. a puzzle, if you will.

moralize all you want, it is impossible to reduce it. people have a social self, a self they present to the world. AND a private self. the distance between these two selves is as gap-ridden and opaque as the thinnest fabric of clothing used to separate and armor the naked skin from the eyes of the prying world...