by Asher Black 11-25-06
I can’t get over the feeling that you manipulate. Everything you do – you’ve said it yourself – is with the awareness of more than one possible outcome, and you choose what you do and say accordingly.
And that’s a flaw? Is it wrong for my mind to be so quick, to see so many possible results of variant choices? And is it wrong then for me to make a choice at all, given what I’ve seen? Do you think I can just turn it off?
You say that, but it still feels like manipulation. Like you’re trying to get someone to do something. It’s a form of control.
We all want something from each other. Be honest. We do. We all think about the effects of what we do and say on other people. After all, you excel at it. You are the ultimate diplomat. And you even criticize me for not being as diplomatic, but then you’ve learned that while I may see one course of action as a way to avoid conflict, I may choose another, because I value something else more highly than simply avoiding conflict. Our argument has been not over whether to consider our effect on others, but what that effect should be.
See, even now, it feels like you’re trying to manipulate me – into seeing things your way. I can feel you subtly winning the argument. And you’re right. You have logic on your side. But something still feels wrong about it.
Wrong, or just alien?
See?
Yes. I’m trying. I honestly can’t do anything about being alien to you, to what you’ve come to expect. And I shouldn’t have to. *That* is being manipulated, after all, bowing to expectations, because you find the part of me that doesn’t uncomfortable.
All right, maybe I’m a hypocrite. I just find the way you manipulate… uncomfortable.
Yes. We’ve established that. Look… I’m going to tell you something, and you can choose to believe me or not.
Go ahead.
I’m a prescient.
What?
Sometimes… I can see into the future.
Oh come on. You’re taking this stuff a little too seriously…
I do take it seriously. Because it’s both a survival mechanism and a somewhat costly one. But it’s nonetheless true, for being serious.
I don’t believe you can see the future.
I didn’t say that. I didn’t say I could see the future. I said that sometimes I can see *into the future. It’s not infallible, and it’s often not controllable, and I don’t usually choose when it happens.
I’m sorry. I just don’t believe you.
I don’t care.
So prove it. Show me what’s going to happen.
I told you, I can’t do that. And I’m not going to try to prove it to you – I don’t do readings. Sometimes I can see into the future the way people ordinarily see the past, or a dream, or art, or something present. In fact, I don’t even get to determine how I see. It’s just a matter of being open. Uniquely open. And at the same time, perhaps, closed to some things. I don’t judge the images that come into my head, or the sounds, or what have you. You know, it’s part of what I do as a writer, that I take it all, and I let it wash over me. If I judge it, I can’t write. And of course, then I can’t see. I think it’s because I do the one thing that the other happens.
All right. Well, if I can’t see it, I can’t believe it.
And if you believed it, would I be *excused then, for seeing? Or would you find me even more dangerous – even more manipulative.
I don’t know. On something like that… if I could see it, I suppose I’d rethink things.
All I can do is share it with you as it happens, but I don’t know if you’ll see it the same way. I mean, like I say, I see into it like I see other things. I don’t know it’s the future at the time. It’s just part of what feeds my senses. I can’t tell you, “I predict such and such.” If you wanted to see it, you’d have to be aware of what I was thinking a good deal of the time. You’d have to be in conversation with me. Even then… even then, you might not.
See, this feels like manipulation. If I don’t remain your friend, more or less. If I don’t remain open to you, I won’t be able to see it. And even then, I might not. You’re just trying to keep me in a place where you can manipulate me more.
Well, if you begin with distrust, you’ll never really know either way, of course. And yes, that means that you’d have to let go and trust me, believe me at least tentatively, and be open to me, in order to know and find out. There are some things that you can’t know, except from within them – sometimes objectivity means going into something and knowing it from within, having let go of your other ground. Not doing that means incomprehension, in some things. So yeah, it’s a risk. Only you can decide whether the risk is worth the possibility that you’ve been wrong – or if it’s better to believe something that’s possibly wrong, without being able to be certain. Call it manipulation, but then I’m not manipulating you. It’s just the order of things.
I’ll give it thought.
All right. Meanwhile, and *alert, *alert, this could be an attempt to connect with you. Be warned. Do you want to go to Borders and get a cup of coffee?
Yeah. All right.
[Walking to the car, he sings under his breath the opening lines of a Tori Amos song, "Every finger in the room, is pointing at me…"]
You and your Lilith Fair music.
Yeah. I’m a male lesbian. What can I say?
[On keying the ignition, the radio does a station id and then cues up the same song.]
No fucking way. Don’t even try to say you knew.
I didn’t know. That’s what I’ve been saying. It washes over me like a mood, or an attitude, or a wave of images, or a picture or song. Anything. And those things contribute to what I say and do. I don’t know it’s the future. I suspect it often becomes the future *because I go with it. I’m not scientific about it; it’s not a science.
Yeah, I’d sooner believe you paid the radio station.
And I knew the exact moment we’d get in the car and you’d turn the key?
Don’t try to milk a coincidence. That’ll make me doubt you more than anything.
Perhaps it *is a coincidence. How would I know? But how many coincidences does it take to make a pattern?
Three. We always agreed on that.
Three it is then. But you see what I mean – you only know it by being in my life. I can’t help that.
Well how long am I supposed to give it? If it’s indefinite, then we’re just waiting for a third coincidence.
True. And it may be like that. I can’t promise anything. If I could, I’d tell fortunes. All I can say is you’ll have to decide for you.
All right. I’ll think about it.
You’re aware, of course, that I find the whole thing rather insulting. I mean, if you were anyone else, I’d have simply smiled and been *nice. Diplomatic but emotionally unavailable. The idea of remaining open to you while you *decide if I’m real, is a bit degrading. But I do it because you are my son, my brother, and my friend. But after this, if you don’t trust who I am, that it’s me, that I can’t really be second-guessed, I won’t try again. I’ll go on anyway.
OK. I wouldn’t try again, either. But let me ask you this, can you see where this is going? Do you have a feeling about it?
Yes. I don’t know of course. I could be wrong. But the song says it’s not going to work out.
Short URL: http://tinyurl.com/yjwtew4
