Aspectabund: The Face of my Voice

Yesterday I posted the word “aspectabund”, an adjective which means being possessed of a face that shows emotions clearly.

Between then and now I have been contemplating anonymity. This blog is nameless if a name should denote a specific human identity. For those of you reading this, though, ‘notalltheenglishdrinktea’ functions just as a name would. One can only hide from those who (we believe) know of one’s existence. Progress then from anonymity to facelessness. I have an identification tag. What I lack is an age, a gender, an employment, an history. I’d imagine some of those to be deducible; others perhaps less so. The question of whether they are relevant is a different matter. Of course, I believe they are relevant; the degree of and reason for this relevance, however, while more interesting, is something I don’t intend to pursue here.

There is a gulf, therefore, between utterance and origin, like the thoughts of a narrator. There’s an author at work, but although his originating causality is everywhere inscribed in the literary work, it is simultaneously absent from the text. The causal chain hits the first level narrator and then turns a corner, or extends into the fog.

Writing, therefore, as narrator rather than author, I can exert greater control on the output. Theoretically. I can assume a voice, I can distort my own voice. I can form whatever narrator-persona I am capable of. Yet, to return to “aspectabund”, from what type of face does my voice originate? Or, more accurately, what type of face does my voice have, or indeed is my voice? Does it give away my emotions, does everywhere exude slight traces of what I think theoretically suppressible?

Undoubtedly.

Of course, what is less clear, for the Other involved, is what is controlled and what is unintentional. Of course, each act of control yields information about the controlling force and agent at work. Understanding information though, fortunately, is far harder and inevitably imprecise.

And, of course, this whole discussion rests on a false notion of the author being a unity behind the narrator. The author is just as slippery a concept. There’s no unified ‘I’ resident in me. I can never truly assume a voice that is not my own, nor assume a voice that is. The argument just doesn’t quite align with the reality of identity, whatever that may be.

Q&A

Q: If you’re alone in a forest vocalising your thoughts to whomever may be listening, is there anyone there to see you talking to yourself?

A: No.

Conclusion: Talk as if someone’s there to listen. All witnesses will be in your favour.

 

 

 

Disclaimers:

1. Yes, I acknowledge the flaws in the argument. I accept that ‘someone can hear me’ is not identical to ‘someone wants to hear me’, nor identical to ‘the person hearing me considers herself to be my “audience”’. Equally, yes, someone hearing me in the present would indeed be capable of inferring that in past/future moments I would still have been / still be talking in the same manner without an audience.
2. A rambling but harmless innocent is better than deforestation.
3. Yes, I did pay attention in logic classes. No, I do not think that perfectly logical thoughts are the only ones that should be articulated.

Write a Journal (?)

Write a journal.

It’s not much by way of advice, but it’s often all you get. At least they don’t say diary. In a life where routine is not just punctuation but plot, a text-bound realisation of monotony is hardly an effective inspirational device. ‘Journal’ at least can expand to accept thoughts and ramblings as entries. But thinking is far more pleasant with just a window and a comfy chair; add in a pen/computer and you limit the thoughts to articulation and notation. I guess I’m just too impatient to restrain my thinking so that I may inform myself of my own thoughts.

It’s all rather pointless anyway. Even with talent there’s little money in writing. And I’m reliably informed that stripping and prostitution are morally suspect. So here I shall freely lay bare (some of) my thoughts, expose my hollow linguistic forgery, for you poor unfortunate(s) unluckily bored enough to stumble upon them.