PureSchmaltz

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TheThirdPerson

eyeinthesky
" … you might just as well be mumbling."

Me, myself, and I never considered becoming a trio, for we are one and the same perspective using three different names. I can describe you, from my perspective, and you, me, from yours, each fulfilling the role of second person, like a back-up. Me and my shadow have always been two distinct entities, speaking not as one but as opposites. While me, myself, and I speak from personal experience, like me and you do, explicitly owning the perspective we share, my shadow, whom I refer to as TheThirdPerson, exclusively speaks as though he were not there. Instead of proclaiming that he saw something, he hints that something was seen, leaving nothing more than an innuendo of ownership behind. Product descriptions and scholarly papers read as though nobody wrote them, an anonymous voice mouthing hollowed-out phrases.

Such writing works far more effectively than knock-out pills.
It induces an otherworldly trance-like state in this reader. I struggle to follow the story. I wonder who's speaking to me and where did they gain possession of these unsupported descriptions? In the history of this universe so far, not one thing has ever simply happened. Some cause at least contributed to every effect. Nothing was ever seen without some observer looking. Innuendo tells no stories, just unanimated rumors.

I've been wrestling with TheThirdPerson ever since I was a kid. In school, I submitted papers drafted in a conversational style, offending my more scholarly professors. In work, my white papers, too, could read more like detective stories than bloodless analysis. I could never leave well enough alone and insist how it was without including some observer in the story. I would not decisively state that some process or team 'was dysfunctional,' a common weasel-worded declaration in the business world. That ThirdPerson, though, dogged me every inch of the way. Some bloodless Earnest and Young consultant could blithely insist what nobody could possible observe and satisfy the hiring executive, who, I suspected, tried to live in ThirdPerson safety from the complications of real relationships, owning unsettling observations, or supporting unpopular observers.

No sun was ever reported to have risen without the reporter having witnessed it, presumed it, or lied about it. The sky is not rumbling. I hear it rumble. Without my hearing, the rumble could not possibly exist. I quickly discard anything written in The ThirdPerson omniscient. I don't need omniscience nearly as much as I need presence. Speak to me as if we were both here rather than as if it doesn't matter whether either of us, speaker or listener, even exists. No,
a quick brown fox did not jump over any lazy dog. Someone witnessed the feat and someone reported on it. Who concluded that the fox was quick? That the dog was, indeed, lazy? Why even mention the occurrence?

I believe that the great tragedy of language is its inherent ability not to describe, but to nearly completely obscure an attempted description. TheThirdPerson seems dedicated to smothering meaning, voice, and personality. The authoritative voice seems no more informing than a misleading one. I mistrust both, which might be why they both seem to put me to sleep. (Yawn!) We see the world, not as it is, not as TheThirdPerson insists it is, but as we are. Include yourself (or somebody) in the story or you might just as well be mumbling.





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