My Self and Masochism

You may have noticed, boys and girls, that, for all its ego-centrism, this blog isn't really about egotism. And you may have wondered--as have I--where I'm going with it. Well, to put the matter as clearly as I know how, what all this about is the Voyage of Self-Discovery. The difference is that egos are proud of themselves, or ashamed, or trying (always) trying to justify or excuse themselves or become something they're not. Selves just are. They don't care about trying to be or become. What concerns selves is that they don't know what they are and they want to find out--in a way that egos are too incurious, too fearful, too vainglorious, or too judgemental even to think about. Another difference between egos and selves is that egos have opinions, are aware of believing and thinking and loving and hating things; but only selves know why; even though, mostly, they don't know how they know. A case in point is my lifelong aversion from, contempt for, disdain and hatred of Earnest Hemingway, the man and his works--and really I hadn't read enough to say why. Just something told me. Well...doing a little research on Sam D'Allessandro's (to me) startling paean to vulnerability and self-abnegation-as-pleasure, googling "masochism," what do I find but that the latest book out on Hemingway (Richard Fantina's Earnest Hemingway: Machismo and Masochism) is about "Papa's" heterosexual masochism cum homophobia ("Machismo" forsooth!): Hemingway was a pussy-man. Maybe I'd better define that. A pussy-man is a male heterosexual who feels, and has no qualms about acting as if, no man is as good as any woman. They are unconscionably and unconsciously rude to other men--as though to deny that they themselves are men. The 18th century was full of pussy-men (Rousseau, Goldoni, Louis XV); which is why it's called the Age of Women. You can tell a pussy-man (if you're a man) by the way he doesn't notice you if he can help it, and if you do say anything to him he will stare a moment at the air next to you (as if that's where your voice came from) and turn to any one of the ladies present and say, "Do you feel that that is so, Betty-Jean?" Very often pussy-men are masochists, and usually they think Sigmund Freud a genius.