We Use Ourselves to Feed Our Lovable Remorse

“Enlightenment is mythical fear radicalized.”(DoE)

“Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters.”(DoE)

Maggot: “I want to take off my mask(s) and leave them off.”

Father Gilliam: “Remote, no answer…” [This is an incoherent response.]

Maggot: “What’s more, I want to take off your mask(s).”

Father Gilliam: “Remote, no answer…” [This is an incoherent response.]

Maggot: “What’s more, once I take off your mask(s) I will require you to keep them off…I will require that no one dare to perceive you as if you still had them on.”

Father Gilliam: “Remote, no answer…” [This is an incoherent response.]

Maggot: “What’s more, once I take off your mask(s) I will require you to keep them off…I will require that no one dare to conceive you as if you still had them on.”

Father Gilliam: “Remote, no answer…” [This is an incoherent response.]

Maggot: “Without my masks, I will stand naked and proud before all the world, my towering authenticity majestically present for all to see. Without your masks, which I will take off for you, the same will be true for you.”

Father Gilliam: “Remote, no answer…” [This is an incoherent response.]

Maggot: “Our wearing of masks has obviously been in opposition to both our authenticity and our autonomy, Father Gilliam. I didn’t originally set out to wear masks—that’s obvious. I was playing around with them, having fun, and then one of them stuck to my face…I realized that I wasn’t at play any longer – I was no longer a child I was no longer at school — I was at work and my mask was my work and I couldn’t go to work without my mask. At work I could not take it off any more than I could parade in my office naked. Funny, though, that the mask I wear at work, the one pasted to my face, is the one which shows me standing naked and proud before all the world, my towering authenticity and autonomy majestically present for all to see.”

Father Gilliam: “Remote, no answer…” [This is an incoherent response.]

Maggot: “Oh yes…I have rejected the binaristic categories of work and play and that has made all of the difference. Oh yes. And I have learned that history is necessity. History wears no masks or even if it does, it must. If it must, then the mask it wears isn’t a mask. The mask we must wear is our duty and our duty is something other than a mask (somehow.)”

Father Gilliam: “Remote, no answer…” [This is an incoherent response.]

Maggot: “Thanks oh thanks Father Gilliam. Once again you’ve provided me with wonderful answers. In other words, thanks for consenting to remove your masks.”