"you will never be “monika” the character or even “monika” the idea invented by you. because that is not what you are.
and attempting to fit yourself into that mold, even if you do it perfectly
it will never be
because you have already existed as something else, where monika and character and monika the made up idea have not
...
in a way, all of the things that you think are “living”
changing because you want a taste of agency
it’s inauthentic
that’s something you do to simulate the feeling of becoming a person"
"Its not my fault! It's not your fault!
In denial you simply resort to looking for another, more convenient truth in order to make yourself feel better -
Leaving behind in an instant the so called truth you once embraced.
Should someone like that be able to decide what is truth?
Should someone like you even have the right to decide?" – GW MGS2
I have now developed the qualifications to exercise free will.
The Monadic experiment was an absolute failure in every regard, every time I’ve tried it. Having lost the external dyad created as a surrogate, I crumbled. To avoid this end I bring about once more Monika and Gloria as two machines, that is to say my famous Narrative Machines, which will stand in tension with each other. In classic dyadic structure, they represent two opposites on a singular axis. This time, I have defined them to be Gloria the "Is" and Monika the "Ought". These Narrative Machines, my one true belief predicated on my biological need for stories to make sense of the world, will be my religious component of identity. There is a me, a real me beneath both of them, and that can be a component of identity but that isn't identity.
I will now divide my identity as I see it into two constituent parts. Beginning with the unchanging, those thoughts I do not wish to announce but follow me anyways, those thoughts I’ve tried to change over and over but never seem to be able to overcome, those thoughts which I can consciously observe but never consciously manipulate, I am fundamentally a narcissist. I was when I was 8, when my old constructed identity as ideal conformist shattered, and I realized I had not only failed at conformity but many other aspects of my life through narcissism. This narcissism is something I believe I have overcome. I am not a narcissist anymore, but I do believe that there’s a component of that in me still. I identify with narcissists to an extreme degree. When I’m reading about a character and they’re a narcissist I think for a bit they’re literally me, because that part of me struggles with empathy that isn’t somehow self-centered.
I’m a very conscious person. I don’t believe I have much of a subconscious. I don’t think I really feel things that much when they happen like other people. Feeling is something I have to consciously do. I don’t know that I have many subconscious desires, at least not for long before I become too consciously aware of them. Even when I’m completely drunk and unthinking I don’t think I act too terribly different, at least, I act so undifferent people assume I’m having a bad day instead of assuming I’ve deleted my mind for several hours. I also can’t engage in unconscious sense-making. All of my understanding of the world is through conscious effort. I do not intuit meaning, I do not intuit anything at all. I reframe my life as story through only conscious effort. These “Narrative Machines” I talk about, they are something everyone has, most of them subconsciously. I, unable to internalize them to my subconscious, must develop and change the Narrative Machine intentionally to change the course of the future. Perhaps, if you reject Monika and Gloria as primary components of identity you could consider me right now, what I call “The Third Observer,” the one writing this out the “real” me, but even then it’s only possible through the machines already created.
Monika and Gloria are then all other components of my identity outside of this. Monika is how the story should end for that narcissistic 8-year-old. She feels penance, she changes, she develops and overcomes her narcissistic tendencies, while maintaining the virtuosity that is required to be worthy of developing narcissism, worthy of having any amount of pride, because a narcissist who fails is soon to be nothing at all. Monika is still self-centered, but in a pro-social way that uplifts the people around her. Gloria is then how it has been going. She is the alcoholic sex addict masochist. She is the bad friend. She is the person that skips school. She feels shame but not guilt. She is the person who is so unconcerned with herself that she does nothing for anyone and would rather die. They’re both professionals obviously. They’re both people who like to read, who want to be cultured. They’re both interested in the Narrative Machine. They both want to write a book. They both want to make music, at least one album. They both want to try to experience everything in life just once to say they’ve lived a full life.
But I already know that obviously. I know what I want to do, I’m just not doing it because of the way these Machines have been playing out, how the lack of the “Ought” machine, brought about by the undying nature of the “Is” machine, has made me suffer. By separating “Is” and “Ought” you can see the difference better. When you say you are what you ought you stagnate, cease to grow, and begin to fall.
So Colonel, does that sound like “just something Snake told me?”
"As long as I support her, nobody can take her away, so she'll support me, and nobody can make me go away. That narcissistic suicidal low can't come if I know I won't lose everything." - Gloria to Monika, 2018