#if i had a nickel for every time a bagel metaphor made me cry I'd have 2 nickels etc etc

[semiotomatics]

thinkin about absence

...was gonna put the rest in the tags but fuck it, have a read more like it's 2014

yeah. thinkin abt absence.

as in, "the absence of–"

"devoid of–"

"a–"

I hate defining something by what it lacks. it becomes deficient by nature. it becomes perpetually, intrinsically incomplete.

nothing is intrinsically incomplete.

take mars. mars lacks liquid water* and an oxygen-rich atmosphere. it does, however, have both water ice and water vapour, as well as an atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide. it also has two moons, several volcanoes, seasons, and even weather. it has a past, and a present, and a future. it is, without qualification or limitation. and yet we still define it by what it lacks, because what it lacks happens to be the things that matter most to humans on earth.

should this matter to mars? no. mars is a planet, and this is a metaphor. I really hope I don't need to explain to you that this is a metaphor.

anyway, the thing about defining yourself by what you lack or how you differ from those around you is that it frames every experience within that absence, leaving no room for anything else to fill the space. it blinds you to what exists beyond the absence, to what is. to use another hamfisted metaphor, a bagel is more than just the hole in its centre.

...actually, scratch that. I was trying to make a point but then I googled whether there's such a thing as a bagel without a hole and found the truest, most personally resonant statement I've ever read, and it's in an essay about bagels on a website called myrecipes.com, because of course true self-actualization would be found on a recipe website in an essay about bagels.

anyway, the line is:

The fact is, of course, that the bagel’s hole is not the absence of bagel, but rather its very essence. To have “more bagel,” as it were, at the center of a bagel, would really mean having less of a bagel.

that's it. that's literally it. the bagel isn't whole despite the hole, it's whole because of it. it isn't an absence, it's an essence.

idk, maybe bagels aren't the best metaphor for aromanticism, which is what this entire post has been about all along (surprise!). maybe I should've stuck to mars. maybe none of this makes any sense at all. in any case, the point I was originally trying to make is that absence, like reality, is subjective. the only reason aromantics are considered to be lacking love is because someone decided to compare us to alloromantics, and the only reason the bagel is considered to be lacking a centre is because someone decided to compare it to a bialy. in truth, it's the comparison that lacks (in this case, nuance regarding the definition of love/a centre), not us (in this case, me/the bagel). that's all I was trying to say.