one thing i've come to realize... and this is an insight i intend to incorporate into the story... is the way i work. when it comes to creative, expressive endeavors... or even other things that aren't considered "creative," but are only dependent upon me, and only have myself to answer for... well, i am wary of being too decisive about these things. and i think it directly relates to my experiences with my brother. because of my brother, the direct path has always been obstructed. he dominates everything, and i had learned from experience that it was useless to assert myself or compete against him. in fact, i think it is largely due to this that my general psychology with relation to people in general has been to distrust them, or rather, to trust their disdain of me far more than anything else... and yet, i don't avoid the disdain. because, again, due to my brother, that disdain was inevitable and inescapable... the bottom line is this: i never take the direct path. if i do so, then this feeling of self-hatred and self-loathing inevitably creeps in and destroys me and shames me. it's not a matter of enduring it; the very thing i'm creating becomes affected, riddled with ugliness and inconsistency... so instead, i take the more meandering path, the path of least resistance. i do free association. i do sketches. in no way do i express myself directly or forcefully- because, again, my brother occupies that path, and there has never been enough room for me on it... in other words, i have made my own way. and by its very nature, my way has always been the secret path, the shadow path, the path of increments, the path of harmony...
perhaps some of my latent "regret" is simply due to the fact that i don't think i have ever walked the path that my brother walks, the one of force and assurance. i distrust it. in fact, i despise it. and any scent of assuredness, of the too-consistent, of overly confident voices, or of arrogance- it is something i cannot abide with. it reeks to me... maybe that's why i go for the low voices. that's why i teach special education children. that's why i relate to children better than adults. it is because, by my nature, i have been consigned to the shadows, to tend to the forgotten...
anyway, that's the insight i came to as i considered how to write the parallel storyline. i now intend to have the obstacles be "impossible" for the characters to overcome directly- and this to be an intentional message for how the main character must learn to be in dealing with his brother, and perhaps (fatally) in dealing with life.
*****
i understand now, a bit. how i had looked upon the eyes of women as salvific. for if i always walked the meandering shadow path, unable to hold my feelings up to the light- then the only way they would ever be seen would be if someone was actively looking for them. for me, "romance" always equated to a subterfuge. a subterfuge, not only with the other person, but a subterfuge within myself, struggling to countenance the feelings that i had. i have always looked upon the "sunlight" relationships with a certain envy, but i couldn't- i absolutely could not- place myself in such situations. everything, everything, must go the shadow path.
underneath, i think i am a kind, caring person (but again, is this only because that is how i have to be? is this because i never allow myself to be cruel and selfish, as my brother was and is?). but i am, of necessity, cloaked in shadow and indirectness; the left-handed, sinister path.
*****
the eye is never totalizing. vision is always fragmented. and if i have my way with it, it will always, always have a blind spot. hidden within that, and in the peripheries, are the vagabonds, who, like me, were exiled to not be seen- if only to survive.
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