MY FACELESS SADIST:

I get the feeling that this was your plan all along: To sit behind the screen with your whip and mask, making my anticipation grow until it felt like it would rip me in two. And then, a calculated number of days later, you let me feel it all in a rush, releasing me from its treacherous bonds. If it was anyone except you, I might retaliate,

(because how dare they turn the tables)

but because it’s you, lover, I must admit that I have pleasure—thank you.

I like the baby picture kick that you’re on. Some personality theorists in the first half of the twentieth century speculated about the significance of the childhood memories that we choose to retrieve and rehearse and revive. So in order to get a glimpse into the current state of someone’s psyche, they would ask: “Tell me about your earliest childhood memory.”

And some might say: “I remember being in my crib. I don’t know how old I was, but I was in a crib. I remember lying there in the semi-dark, and studying the cobwebs on the ceiling being gently blown by the air conditioning.”

Or, “I remember being on my back under a Christmas tree, and looking up at the lights twinkling through the plastic branches. There was a distinct feeling associated with it—so tangible that it was almost a smell: the scent of anticipation.”

Or even, “I remember riding a go-cart with my oldest brother. I was too small to drive, so he put me in his lap as we rode around our field. I felt safe, and so proud to be included in this activity with him.”

Ostensibly, each of these memories would give some crucial insight into the current state of mind of the speaker: “The speaker is infatuated with isolation; is infatuated with sensation-seeking; is infatuated with those perceived as superior.” Though I can’t endorse this method scientifically, or claim that it is diagnostically useful, I do like the implication that memories are at once the product of what has passed, and also what is present. They are not snapshots of our lives as they were, but instead paintings of our past selves, the subject and brushstrokes guided by our present selves. (Paintings that made it worth it to leave the garden.)

It’s only slightly different from the magic of looking at baby pictures. Though the photos are in one sense objective, aren’t your careful evaluations of the image, the details you deem significant, in some sense more revealing about your current self than your 1 or 2 or 3 year old self? “There,” you say, “Look how happy I was.” “I was a chubby-assed little baby.” “I really loved that shirt (and of course the implications of that are obvious).” “I was still me—even then, I was me.”

Of course, you weren’t really. You haven’t been that particular you for a long time—both psychologically and biologically, you have sloughed off many selves since that picture. But it’s reassuring, the comparison. It’s reassuring to know that you existed then, and that you were so similar to your current conception of yourself. Reassuring to see hints of this emerging identity, or that emerging preference. We need those photos, those reassurances that certain things remain constant. Just as we need holidays: it’s comforting to know that at least one day a year, we know that we will, eternally, be doing the same, pleasurable things with (hopefully) the same pleasurable people. That is one aspect of our lives that we will always have, no matter how ridiculously, rapidly, relentlessly our lives change.

~ The Masochist Who Cares (For The Face Behind The Mask)