Having explored relational ruin, physical wreckage, and the mastery over historical possessions, this fourth post moves the "Navigator" into the realm of Perception and Social Boundaries. It addresses the struggle of an "unowned" self confronting the "cabinets" and "categories" of a world that seeks to standardise the human experience.
Where are our borders?
Is art’s line in the sand
the thumb of approximation?
How raw is raw, and what slice of pain
suits the occasion?
The attentions that perceive the tone,
the hue, the shade, the pale of admiration —
to those
I am closed and unread, as I am unowned.
Those eyes chain.
Cabinets categorise, malice‑laden
abbreviations of organisations
doing good for standards,
naming notions
like potions meant to conjure entrance
and ensnare.
In eyes that despise protest, confrontation,
they pine to return to where they thought
they stood their ground on hills high,
victories won on toy battlefields,
killing the freedom‑thinking few.
The next pitfall — assumption’s eye —
measures all and envies size.
Shoes that fit,
the cap too big for all the offerings,
charities pinned to lapels
in honour of attention, paying just enough glance
to invent, to appropriate titles for perusers
of superficiality, charmed by
shiny things like lips and arse and tits,
groins bulging for fantasies indulged
in speculation of size, of length and girth,
and penetrative worths
of feet so big and hands so small.
Those eyes are cursed forever,
disappointed. You cannot anoint the profane,
and you should not massage excrement.
Struggling left‑brain/right‑brain dilemmas
scar the slapped face. Blood and spittle pool
in mouths swallowed and hidden from curious
questions. Tutors set tests inexperience
struggles to comprehend; the offensiveness
behind their offences, the passive‑aggressive
judgement in words and prose.If innocence is
ignorance wrapped in sheep’s clothing,
and whether such questions are themselves
great or little things men kill their loves over,
knowing there is no consequence to salting wounds
already open, sore, and gangrenous.
Curiosity’s lives run out —
the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth —
saving destruction for something worthwhile,
like kicking the essence out of space,
scorning the secure for their securities,
pissing on their sanctities like hallowed grounds
where guts should not be spilt.
Yet crusades crush wills; histories are forgotten
wisdoms.
At the intersection of identity and perception
lies the story people project onto ignorance.
Are we navigating with awareness in our art?
Brutalism happened — but did we mean it too?
Is the bleak monument testament or testimony?
Truth feels richest in a mouth of lies,
as dreams in dungeons linger longer
than dreams under cover of eiderdown.
I put aside the tinted glasses,
for I am blinded by a kaleidoscope of meaning —
possibilities of pain and elation balancing
on a sensitivity that might be real, but then again, it might not.
To navigate the social categorisation captured in the poem The Violence of Being Seen, the Mind Mechanism prescribes the following statements through these identified nodes. Each statement reflects the method of moving from a wordless vibration into a Manageable Data Point.
Node I: Judgmentalism (Valency: 2)
In this context, Judgmentalism is the "assumption's eye" that measures length and girth, attempting to "anoint the profane" with superficial titles. It is the "passive-aggressive" tendency to categorise the self into "cabinets," creating a "malice-laden" landscape where the individual is trapped by external standards and "toy battlefields".
Node II: Awareness (Valency: 4)
Awareness is the high-spec instrument required to navigate the "intersection of identity and perception". It is the deliberate choice to put aside "tinted glasses" and recognise the "story people project onto ignorance". By "navigating with awareness," the poet transforms the "bleak monument" of being seen into a functional testimony of the "unowned" self.
Node III: Authenticity (Valency: 5)
Authenticity is the state of being "closed and unread" to those who only seek to chain with their eyes. It is the "victory of ascent" where the "bone-white truth" feels richest even in a "mouth of lies". In this state, the navigator finds freedom by remaining "unowned," existing as a "kaleidoscope of meaning" that refuses to be massaged or categorised.
