I. Morning
All things
begin in darkness, such as
The day,
because, no matter how you define it,
There is
always that moment of darkness
When the sun
peeks out; there is darkness,
For, in
order for the light to prick holes through the sky,
There must
be a dark veil to be pricked.
In order
for the sun’s head to poke out,
It must
first be underneath the blankets.
All things
begin in darkness, such as
The
river. We are standing by the spring
now,
Where the
water leaps to greet the air,
But this is
only the source we can get to.
Down
beneath the grey stones is never-challenged darkness,
Crystalline
caves echoing with the water dropping,
Pooling up,
and creating pressure until
It bursts
forth here where we are now.
All things
begin in darkness, such as
Our
journey. Right now, as we stand on the
shore
By the
spring, mud and slime coating the rocks beneath us,
Only
night-vision permits us to stay upright,
Without
slipping, down the rocks or back into the source.
Only
night-vision guides us as we set out,
Step by
tentative step,
Only
night-vision and the soft susurrus
Of the
snaking route beside us in the darkness,
But
darkness will not last forever,
Or at least
darkness cannot persist everywhere,
Or else
nothing could begin in darkness,
And so the
dawn begins when the sky begins to brighten,
And the
river begins when the streamlet trickles down to the meeting place,
And the journey has begun but continues as we
pick our way
By the
whispering streamlet
Over the
primordial mud on the rocks
Into the
indecipherable glow of the sky
Until the
rushing friends begin to mingle,
Until the
whisper turns to gurgling laughter,
Until the
glowing light coalesces as sun,
Until it
becomes easier to rush down like the stream beside us,
Until the
stream beside us hits the gaps,
Halts,
holds its breath, leaps – falls –
Until water
falls!
Waterfalls! Waterfalls – where the paints spilled by the
sun
Pour down
glittering over the white ridges,
Where the
laughter becomes cacophony,
Where the
simple becomes complex,
Where a
sheer chaotic swirl bounces forth
Like a little
explosion of Heaven bursting on the Earth,
A bomb of
joy destroying mundanity,
The breath
of love diffusing in our hearts –
I love the
waterfalls reflecting the daylight,
Which is
why I bless the light.
I adore
being here at this point,
Which is
why I bless the journey.
There is
perfection in the glinting rainbows of waterfalls,
Except for
the cold wind rising up behind us.
I hear the
origins of wind lie in pressure differentiation.
I do not
understand the wind, deeply,
But I
wonder – does the wind arise in darkness?
Does the
wind secretly sneak out of some metaphorical darkness,
Or is the
wind birthed abominably within the light
To chase us
cruelly down the mountain?
I could
stay by waterfalls forever,
Except that
we have made plans to go on a journey,
And except
that there is a cold wind rising up behind us,
Sapping the
comfort from the banks,
And except
that the rainbows will be destroyed in darkness,
And so we
continue to tumble down the mountain,
As the
streams combine, edging parabolically towards river,
As the
colors brighten, the world blooming into full day,
And as the
wind is ever at our backs.
The force
that pulls us forth is gravity, desire,
But
violence is the force that pushes us on.
II. Afternoon
The nature
of our location has long been plain.
Plains, it
is clear, are flat and broad.
The ideal
plain is covered with green –
Green
grass, flowers, life shooting up to greet the sun.
In real
life there are patches of brown,
But there
are also fields of beauty –
Green
dotted with occasional spots of colored flowers.
Sometimes
plains mutate into forests,
Which are
shady respite, restful nuance
To the sunbaked
continuity of plains,
Darker
browns and softer shade,
Crunchier
leafy flooring beneath our feet.
When
disparate instantiations are grouped together as a mental category,
There must
be some generalization lurking behind it.
What lurk
behind the plain and the forest are two things:
One – the flatness,
so that, when the soft breeze rubs against our faces,
It would
take ten thousand years until our gaze breaks
Against the
blips, more like symbols now than mountains,
And, when
we look where we intuitively know must be downwards,
There is no
visible hint of slope,
And where
we are could last forever;
And two –
the river, a blue mirror of the green in the plains,
A level
pause in the midst of the forest,
But always
the river, the same concept in every context,
Eternally
threading through the landscape mat like fate,
Gravity,
desire, violence – omnipresent.
The
category is the middle.
The
category is a balance.
The
category is the farthest point.
The
category is the afternoon
Of our
journey,
For, as we
travel easily, lazily, over the river banks,
Bask in the
sun, dawdle in the shade,
As the
river rumbles in its broad, steady maturity,
As we point
out silver and golden darting fish in the water,
As the buzz
of insects suffuses the afternoon with calm,
As I think
I smell a sweet background flower fragrance,
Although I
cannot deny a certain aura of suspension,
A moment
stretching, backward and forwards, some twenty thousand years,
We are
journeying yet.
Our
presence implies a progress.
We are
journeying yet.
Our
stagnation is uncorrelated with rest.
We are
journeying yet,
Even if
motion has blurred into stillness.
We are
journeying yet,
Even if we
are forgetting –
Are we
forgetting?
This is the
problem with setting,
Or maybe
this is the problem with the human mind,
Or maybe
this is the problem with time –
Yes, I
think perhaps this is the problem with time.
I have not
forgotten the mountains,
But I only
experience them now as abstractions,
Symbolic,
removed, remembered, but only remembered.
Life is and
therefore must have been always
Easy and
flat, step by unhesitant step.
The river
is and therefore must have been always
Broad and
calm, a rushing undercurrent beneath the insect buzzing,
But I have
not forgotten the spring.
The banks
are and therefore must have been always
Well-hollowed
out of the Earth, evident and unquestioned,
But I have
not forgotten the muddy rocks.
The sun is
and therefore must have been always
Radiating
light and heat out into the day,
But I have
not forgotten the nighttime.
The
landscape is and therefore must have been always
Conducive
to an easy background flow,
But I have
not forgotten the waterfalls.
I would not
be shocked if, in my mind,
There is
some kind of eternal waterfall.
If I have a
soul, there are worse ways to conceptualize it
Than as
that perpetual waterfall,
But I do
not know if I have a soul,
And so you
can see that although
I have not
forgotten the waterfalls,
My journey
has removed me from the waterfalls.
What is
absent is not what is present.
What is
present has the quality of eternity,
Even if it
has not the property of eternity,
And even if
we understand it has not the property of eternity.
I have not
forgotten gravity, desire, violence,
But gravity
is hidden in the vales,
And desire
has devolved into a parody,
As desire
always devolves into a parody –
One might
define habit as a parody of desire.
A journey
is a concept that implies desire –
Even if it
is nothing more than the desire for the surcease of pain –
But I know
journeying devolves into a habit –
When the
motive force of each step after step
Stops being
a vital power and retreats into a past self
Whose
intentions are the spur behind each movement
So that one’s
mind disconnects from one’s body,
And someone
else seems to be in control.
Whatever
thoughts, feelings, and desires
Flicker in
the spirit, there is no connection
To the
journey – or the connection is oblique, only,
And so one
is alive and thinking and simultaneously
A ghost and
a robot programmed by a ghost
In a
repetitive loop of action.
Not that
there is anything wrong with journeying.
Not that I
fail to take pleasure in journeying,
And the day
is warm, and the sounds are soft,
The light
is lovely and the flowers fragrant,
The colors
bright and the company engaging,
The
weariness bearable and the routine comfortable,
But the
desire is veiled and hidden.
As for
violence – I have not forgotten the wind,
But the
wind is and must have been always
A ghost
itself, a hint only, and certainly pleasant.
Mountains
have become symbols, but
I wonder
why I ever chose the wind as a symbol
When it is
not only material but also
Mundane and
barely noticeable.
After ten
thousand years, we become desensitized to violence.
The journey
is and therefore must have been always,
But that is
self-evident.
III. Evening
All things
end in darkness, such as
The day, which
is something that ends slowly.
As we walk
on, there is a gradual dimming.
The sun is
no light bulb to blink out in an instant,
But it is
as though you look up, and the sky is blue –
Then – you think
the sky is still blue but
You realize
that the quality of light is different –
As though
the sky has been folded back on itself –
It always
was, you think, a blanket,
And now it
is just doubled back to darken.
The sun has
grown old throughout the day.
Now it is
no child playing with bright blues and greens.
It has
taken up a different sort of paint, and, behind us,
Spills of
it like autumn leaves or berry stains
Begin to
alter the plain pattern.
It is a
commonplace that this is beautiful for a reason.
Imagine
your own sunset.
I will not
write a poem for those who cannot imagine sunset.
That is
what changes the sky.
We might
turn around because
We too like
to imagine the sunset, darkening bit by bit into twilight.
All things
end in darkness, such as
The
river. Out ahead of us, sky and sea
become darkness.
At another
time, perhaps a blue corner would demarcate the horizon,
But now we
can hear the waves,
And maybe
the sleepy sun still highlights a white crest or two,
But mostly
the river is pouring out into darkness.
Limits are
blurred, everything is blurred,
The sound
of water beating back on the shore is a blurring sound.
The scent
of salt in the air is a blurring of boundaries.
A bird or
two is still framed in silhouette against the sky,
Calling out
a cry or two to jolt through moments with sound,
But there
is only one or two.
This
sharpness is dying away,
All to be
consumed by darkness.
Step by
step over wet pebbles we are approaching
The
darkness, and the river too is pouring, frothing
Out into
this endless, endless darkness.
All things
end in darkness, such as
Our
journey. Why are the gulls fleeing the
sky?
Why is the
corner’s edge wearing away?
Do not tell
me it is only the blanket folding,
The sun
sleeping, the paint all fading naturally to blackness,
When I can
see the dark clouds gathering,
Smears of
black and grey earth churning up,
Covering
the leaves and berries.
I can hear
the distant rumble of the thunder,
A sudden
deeper growl cutting across the blurring sound of water,
And its
swifter companion cutting through the sky,
Again and
again, illuminating only to further highlight the darkness.
Sometimes
when you sleep at night you are restless.
You kick up
the sheets and blankets, move them about,
Until you
wake up in the morning to odd piles all about you.
I think the
sun must be restless.
Its blanket
has moved and shifted, piled up in odd places in the sky,
Threatening
and alarming. Soon the rain will be
coming.
Is the water
I feel on my arm from the spray,
Or is it the
harbinger of a further darkness?
Rain and
spray, clouds and night,
Water and
darkness blur into one,
And I say,
all things end in darkness.
She says,
all things begin in darkness.
She asks,
do you remember the spring,
Bubbling
and frothy, pouring forth
The water liberated
from eons of caved darkness?
I say, I
remember the spring,
But all
things end in darkness.
She asks,
do you remember the dawn,
And the
first gleamings of light as the blanket became thinner?
I say, I
remember the dawn,
But all
things end in darkness.
She says,
do you remember the mountains,
How hard it
was to clamber down over the rocks,
Without
slipping, the long distant view down
When our
gaze followed gravity twenty thousand years into the distance?
I say, I
remember the mountains,
But all
things end in darkness.
She says,
do you remember the waterfalls?
She does
not even describe them.
I say, I
remember the waterfalls,
But all
things end in darkness.
She says,
do you remember the wind
When it
seemed to bring a hint of snow and chill,
As if to
remind us that the mountains stretch up beyond
Even our imaginations,
into the snow-capped peaks at the start of the world?
I say, I
remember the wind,
But all
things end in darkness.
She says,
do you remember the plains,
Where we
walked together and laughed,
And the
river was wide and untroubled?
I say, I
remember the plains,
But all
things end in darkness.
She says,
do you remember the forest,
Where there
was shade, and dark green,
And it
almost felt like something was hiding
Somewhere
in the gaps between brown and black,
Watching us
silently as we passed?
I say, I
remember the forest,
But all
things end in darkness.
She says,
do you remember the insects,
Whose soft
buzz was like the sound of summer,
Who remained,
like the basic pulse of life,
Constant
throughout the plains and forests,
Gifting
texture and peace to the afternoon?
I say, I
remember the insects,
But all
things end in darkness.
She says,
do you remember the flowers,
Whose fragrance
was almost imperceptible,
A hint,
only, but pervasive, stretching throughout the day,
And whose
colors gave beauty to the light?
I say, I
remember the flowers,
But all
things end in darkness.
She says,
do you remember our journey.
I say, I
remember our journey.
She says,
all things begin in darkness.
She looks
out over the water,
Her pensive
face illuminated in one second by distant lightning,
Then
shadowed in another.
How distant
is the lightning, really?
Is that
spray or rain dusting my arms?
She says, all
things begin in darkness,
So I want
you to take my hand.
I am still.
She says,
all things begin in darkness.
Of course,
there is a general drift downwards into darkness,
But gravity
is not the only force.
If it were,
then gravity would already be forgotten,
As all
things crunched together in an eternal compaction.
For gravity
to start, there must be separation.
Gravity’s
origins lie out there in the expanse of darkness
As the sun
spills indifference to gravity out over the land and water,
And the
water that has succumbed to gravity is stained by exhilaration,
Excited, jumps
up, invisibly leaping out against the call of gravity,
Then darts,
freed, through the air.
The water
once imprisoned in caves away from the sun,
Has finally
reached its fruition, its ultimate experience of freedom,
Until the
enthusiasm dies away,
And habit
can no longer conquer the absence of desire,
And freedom
devolves first into formation,
Then precipitation,
guided by gravity,
So
eventually, whether it is an immediate response,
Or long
delayed by eons hidden in pools below the earth,
Each particle
will return to the streamlets,
And once
again meet and join and flow down to the mouth,
Guided
again by gravity,
And thus it
is here, in the darkness and expanses,
That gravity
is made possible,
Here, where
gravity fails to reign tyrannically,
Only here
can be the source of gravity,
For how
could water fall,
If there
were only the pools at the bottom,
So I want
you to take my hand.
The spray beats
endlessly against my face.
I am still.
She says,
all things begin in darkness.
Here, where
we stand, the storm will hit,
The waves
will crash, water will eat away at land,
Eroding and
devouring these tiny pebbles beneath our feet,
The tenacious
remainder of a history of assault,
Eventually
to be reclaimed and made again into darkness,
And so,
yes, there is violence here,
But it
pales next to the violence in the darkness,
Where in
the midst of the storm there is no land to be assaulted,
Only water
combatting water in a never-ending battle,
Sea rising
up and lashing in pain against the sky,
Sky falling
down in rivulets against the sea,
Water on
water, surge against surge,
Sea and sky
indistinguishable, both nothing more
Than
whirlpools of insistent water clashing, crashing.
One endless
stream of white water up and down in chaos,
A waterfall
and waterrise turned from cacophony into something more intense,
All the
noise and all the power in the world engulfed in water.
We live on
the land,
And so of
course the force of water,
Surging
back against its children,
Raging to
recover what has become separate,
Is the
force that dismays us,
Destroys
our shelter, shocks us,
And yet
imagine the plight of boats out on the water,
Where the
storm rocks them back and forth
And no
succor remains, where there is no land to hang on to
Only water
above and water below,
And the
boat rises up all the way into the air,
Which is
not an escape from water but a return to more water,
So that
there is no escape from water,
And, pinned
between water and water,
One is
doomed to succumb and never return to land,
But instead
by stretched out and taken up by water,
To be
pressed by violence into its shape forever,
So I want
you to take my hand.
I think the
water is beginning to fall on water, as she says,
But I
cannot see. Out ahead of me is only
darkness –
The water is
darkness, and when I turn my head,
I think I
see only twilight, interrupted so briefly by white bolts –
Behind me
is intermittent darkness.
I say, so
gravity begins in darkness, and violence,
But what
then of desire?
She says, and what then
of desire?
She says, desire; she
pauses.
She says, I think, is a
fiction.
I do not say, it feels
real.
She says, I know it feels
real,
But you alone can feel
your desire,
And you cannot feel my
desire,
If it is real, it remains
inpalpable,
Not to be communicated
straightforwadly,
And thus to speak of
desire is always to speak in figurative language.
A simile, then -
Desire, I think, is like
gravity,
Only more so. It is only after something has defied gravity
That you can see the
beginning of gravity.
Only, then, when something
is empty of desire,
Can you see the beginnings
of desire.
If desire begins in the
darkness,
And if, as you insist,
desire ends in the darkness,
Then there must be a moment,
out there, in the darkness,
Empty of desire, a moment or
an eternity of stillness,
Without
even the ghost of desire.
Does desire
build on desire?
Yes, I am
sure a million hopes and dreams
Spark each
other in the human mind,
As the rush
of gravity would pull the stream
More and
more quickly down towards the bottom,
But each
candle once lit, though it may light another before the end,
Burns out
inexorably. Eventually the wax melts,
And all
that is left are the stains of color dotting the tablecloth.
What fire
rages forever? Therefore, desire must
also arise
In the absence
of desire, an original fire,
A moment
when you awake from stillness,
Take stock
of yourself and think,
Oh, this
feeling is desire.
You feel
once again the pulling,
The
yearning, which will be there
Until it
dies again. One does not desire
What one
possesses; hence, there is a pattern –
Desire –
act – obtain – but the interruption
Always
changes the shape of the desire,
As the
journey is not the source of the journey,
And so the
mouth is different from both the source and the journey,
Even if both
source and mouth lie in the darkness.
Out there,
on our journey, you said,
You were a
mind, and a ghost, and a robot programmed by a ghost.
What then
of your desire?
You may think
that water lies for a hundred thousand years in pelagic darkness
And never
is a flame kindled in water,
But then
the lightning hits a ship, the only tall point for miles,
And it goes
crackling into flames,
Or maybe an
oil spill is burnt off
And so the
water all around sparks into fire.
All stability
is cyclic.
Desire ends
in so many ways.
It ends in
the obtaining of all possible outlets for desire,
But when
there is nothing to set outlets into relief, then there is darkness,
Or it ends
in the burning out of the flame of desire,
Which
metaphorically leads to darkness,
Or it ends
when no mind remains to contain desire,
Snuffed out
into nothing, where all there is is darkness,
But where
there is nothing,
There is
everything to be desired.
When you
were a mind, and a ghost, and a robot programmed by a ghost,
How real
was your desire?
If the
darkness kills desire,
It is also
where desire will be born again.
When you reach
a goal, and the ghost dies,
Then only
can untainted desire rise from the ashes,
So I want
you to take my hand.
This cannot
be only spray;
A steady
thrum falling down on my head,
And I can
barely see through the darkness.
Staring out
at the darkness,
I already
feel as though I am in darkness.
The dimmest
of lights behind me,
The
occasional bolt heading closer,
Are nothing
in the bulk of darkness.
The sun has
covered its paints with the blanket;
The birds are
asleep; darkness is behind me
And in
front of me, we are almost already
In the
darkness and the water.
I can feel
it all over me,
And I can
breathe, so I am not in the sea,
But I am
almost already in the sea.
The waves
leap up on the shore,
The pebbles
below me are soaked and wet,
The rain is
streaming like ocean currents.
I can look
up to get a face full of water
Or stare
down to look the water in the face.
I can see
the clouded over blanket above me
Or the
failure of the horizon out in front of me.
With
darkness and water surrounding me, above and below,
Left and
right, before and behind,
I have no
sense of direction,
But,
without direction, I can have no sense of gravity.
There is no
easiest path to take.
She says, I
want you to take my hand.
Fat drops
of rain blur together with ocean spray.
If I am
without gravity, I may also be without desires.
A long time
ago, someone in the past formulated a desire,
Somewhere
distant, tens of thousands of years away,
And I have
been fulfilling her desire.
Anything
else that briefly sparked up from my feelings,
Thoughts,
emotions, was quickly smothered
By the
ghost in the machine.
One desire
drawing me on for so long,
Long after
it faded into habit,
And now I
have lost all my desires.
If I knew
what I wanted, I might do it,
But now it
seems as though as sea and sky and land blend into one,
There are
no distinctions,
And one
path is as good as another,
If I am
only waiting for a flame to light again,
And the
lightning is right above me,
And she
wants me to take her hand.
She says, I
want you to take my hand.
Pebbles are
sucked beneath my feet into the sea.
Violence is
justified in self-defense, I hear,
But
otherwise one is pushed by violence, not pulled by it.
Surely it
is better to avoid violence.
Surely one
universal desire is to escape violence.
Out there
in the darkness, she told me, there is violence,
Endless
violence; the sea will seem calm but, at its core, violence.
The sharks
are eternally moving in the water, I hear,
The storms
are rough and destructive.
The
mermaids have sharp teeth.
They bite
into you and your blood pours out into the ocean,
And I have always
been terrified of jellyfish.
It does not
seem right, somehow, to become violence
When one is
not violence.
The thunder
now is so loud, so close,
It sounds
like the pebbles are exploding.
How can one
make the choice to become violence,
And yet, I
struggle to remember, even in our peaceful times there was violence,
The breeze
that calmed the plains and ruffled the forest
The same wind
that threatened snow in the mountains
And is
sheeting a deluge against my face now.
If violence
was the force that pushed us on, towards the darkness,
And if
violence lives in the darkness,
And pushed
us out of the darkness,
If the
quake that splits the earth to lift up mountains is violence,
And the sea
tears at the land in violence, fighting to take back
What once
arose out of it, pushed by violence,
Then the
whole world is formed in violence,
The moments
of peace only the product of violence,
And doomed
to once more fall back into violence,
As if
violence were mass and the process gravity.
We may wish
– I do wish – for the vales to last forever,
But the
vales are a thin veneer between earthquakes and tsunamis.
We cannot
stretch it thinner.
It has
ripped apart, poked on one side by the mountains,
Drowned on
the other by the sea.
If we are
to make a new one, it is an act of violence against the darkness.
We may want
to avoid violence,
But we ourselves
were birthed in violence,
And only
after destruction is their space left to create in.
When the
world is a unity,
When sea is
sky and darkness darkness,
Only by
tearing things apart can we return to distinctions.
Maybe if we
try a little harder, do a little better,
Peace can
arise once more out of violence.
Maybe peace
can conquer violence, next time.
If violence
threatens to destroy peace,
Peace must
know how to defend itself,
And thus if
there is a time when violence is not the answer,
We have not
reached it yet.
We need to
make the space to create it in,
Make for
thicker vales.
Here, in
the present maelstrom of violence,
My hair is
whipped around by the wind,
Already wet
and dripping little streamlets of its own,
And I say,
all things begin in darkness.
The wind is
loud, the thunder fierce,
The sea
fighting back with its own howls.
She needs
to shout.
She shouts,
from here on,
We will
become the darkness.
We grab
hands.
Holding hands,
forming a line, we rush together
Out away
from the majestic mountains,
Into the
pools where the water begins to creep up our legs,
Out away
from the plains,
Into the salt
and the streams of water caused by sudden darting fish,
Out away
from the darkness,
Into the
darkness,
Sea and sky
and land drop away,
Darkness is
darkness is darkness.
We are
rushing now, now that our journey
Has ended and
begun, rushing forth
Out past
the mouth into the sea,
Out past
our fear into emptiness,
Holding
hands, together, sweeping on
In the
struggle to become the darkness.
3 comments:
WOW! Well so far I read Morning and Afternoon. will save evening for tomorrow. Brilliant! So complicated yet put so beautifully and I can so fully understand and relate. BRAVO!
okay, now in the middle of Night. Loving it. In the meantime can you explain a bit about "gravity" and something about who "she" might be.
Thank you.
Thank you for your kind words! I'm glad you're enjoying it.
Gravity, is, well, gravity. I think that the line "violence is the force that pushes us on" came to me first, but I'm not sure I remember how I got from there to the idea that other forces were involved too. On some level, I think it just seemed obvious enough to me that a river flows downstream because of gravity that I felt it needed to go in there. To the degree that gravity becomes metaphorical or symbolic in the poem, I suppose it's symbolic of scientific law or natural law in general, but I think that mostly gravity is just gravity. The part about gravity, desire and violence was really something I came up with for the first part that ended up being increasingly important as I continued to develop my ideas for the poem rather than something that was a key part of the imagery as it first came to me, so it ended up playing a large role, but the fact that gravity and desire ended up playing such a large role in particular was to some degree unintended at first?
I came up with the image that prompted the poem while considering a social problem in a social context, so it became important to me to write a poem that wasn't only about a single person's journey, as that wasn't really relevant to what I had been thinking about. I think some of my first few aborted tries may have been about only one person, and that might have been one of the reasons why I didn't find them satisfying? At any rate, it was quite clear to me from the beginning that it had to be more than one person making the journey. I kind of wanted to keep it ambiguous over the course of the poem as to whether it was only two or more than two, but I'm not sure if I succeeded in the end. In the end, it turned out that, since I was pondering my own thoughts about an issue when I came up with the image behind the poem, the poem had to end up with a debate and a solution to the debate. So a particular other person ended up being externalized. I called her "she" rather than "he" for "political" reasons - because if there is no particular reason for a character to be of any particular gender, you might as well default to female so as to avoid the assumption that default people are male - similarly to how, when writing an essay, I generally alternate between calling indefinite people "she" and "he" but am always quite careful to call the first one "she,' not "he" - and for personal reasons - because I did come up with both sides of the argument, and I'm female, and because when I imagine an arbitrary friend to take a trip like this with or to have this kind of conversation with, she's more likely to be female in my mind than male.
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