Silver with a Smile

I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what it going on - both factually and narratively - in the lives of people other than me. It is literally my job; I work as a therapist and a certain percentage of my clientele has delusions, hallucinations, and severe cognitive deficits. This means that I simultaneously have to reassure my clients that I trust and believe in them, while trying to ferret out what really happened. Through this, I have become sensitive to the idea of truth, and the idea of there being many types of truths; there is the emotional truths of missing people, fearing for them, of having desires and jealousies that are difficult to reconcile with our views of ourselves. There is the factual truth of things which have been studied or recorded. There is the subjective truth of our reasonable assessment given our lives and experiences. The world, and live itself, is made up of these many competing, overlapping truths, along with the emotional demands of  feeling comfortable within our skin, of feeling safe, of feeling nurtured, and of meeting our basic needs of food, shelter, clothing, and love. These overlapping truths are rendered even more disparate by the sheer variety on the internet, the mores of a hundred different cultures intersecting, bouncing off each other, and causing polarizations and patterns within everyone's experiences of the truth.

I was thinking of this recently in the context of Plurk, where - like on Twitter and Facebook - people are encouraged to place their truths out for everyone to see, and have a variety of reactions to having those truths reacted to. From more serious things, like the experiences of prejudice or pain, to more casual stuff, like what is and is not attractive in an avatar, these truths cross over each other, causing changes and polarizations in their wakes. I used to be a big discusser. I used to be ready and willing to wade into a deep, emotionally fraught discussion of sexism, or racism, or any of a hundred social justice things I value. Over time, though, I've grown tired of wrangling back and forth, and watching people come in and characterize the discussion in varying levels of accuracy; having spilled in so much energy, I felt an ever-increasing desire to be read and read accurately, which amped up my emotional experience and often negatively effected my life. My focus has changed recently; where I come into a discussion early enough, I will often drop my truth in a neat, hopefully supported bundle and then... I leave. My truth is no longer my truth, it is now the property of those who read it and react to it, to read and react to as they wish. I don't know if this is actually superior to the wranglers - I suspect we need a lot of different kinds of people doing different kinds of things - but right now it is how I approach the truth. Here is my truth; what you do with it, is your business.

( More pictures here. )

Credits: 

Skin: De La Soul, Candace (promotional item)
Eyes: De La Soul, Rainbow (promotional item)
Ears: Illusions, Seelie Ears
Eyelashes 1: SLink, Mesh Lashes
Eyelashes 2: Flugeln Brise, 05-A
Cosmetics: Mock, Less of a Blues Girl
Hair: Magika, Forget
Flower: World's End Garden, Hair Accessory Gatcha
Wings: Fancy Fairy, Azarelle
Outfit: r2, SHeer Shirt and Skinny Pants
Hands: SLink, Enhanced Mesh Hands
Nails: Izzie's, Metallic Nails
Bracelet: Erratic, Owl Bracelet
Shoes: G Field, Rose Bootie

Poses: Glitterati

Location: It all starts with a smile
Light Settings: Orac - fog
Water Settings: Glassy

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping, only