Reading: Baumeister's Escaping the Self. What I'm going to do, when I get my computer (hopefully by this time next week) and learn how to do it, is copy out several chapters from this book, with cross-references to the two pieces by Sam D'Allesandro, and to my own little disquisition on Self Vs. Ego. Now I understand--and I didn't before--what the Self is: The Body/Physical Sensation + Extrapolated/Constructed/Abstracted/Reflective Meaning/Definition/Emotion. Among the fascinating discoveries I've been making is that Emotion is one of the more elaborate Constructs of this abstract super-physical Self. But and also, the "Amour-propre" of La Rochefoucauld (whose Maximes I have virtually memorized) fits like a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle into (this amazing monstrosity of Rational Western Identity-Consciousness) the "Individual Self." Well, well, well. Much to say and think about. Primo: I had always, till I read this--actually the turn-around began when I read Sam D'Allessandro's little 'stories' and realized that he meant something by "It's not an unusual need, having someone else take the reins for awhile," ("the reins"?) and that I, like Scott and Jeff and 'Mr. Jones,' didn't understand what it was--always, I say, known that alcohol and downer drugs were an escape from rational thought and paralyzants of the central nervous system, and not, as their abusers (or users) are always claiming, .a high like my drugs of choice, which expand, stimulate, elevate thought and feeling. "Drunks and downer freaks," I always like to say, "are cowards, subhuman creeps afraid of thinking and knowing what they're feeling." I'd've said that about masochists too, if I'd thought of it. Well I don't say that anymore. And I now see that my pornography addiction is just that, an addiction, which serves the exact same purpose as any other escape (masochism, alcoholism, religion) from the ever-tense, ever-emotional, ever-judgemental Western Humanist Individual Self which I, like everybody, have internalized, and which rules me (as I had never before realized) as absolutely as it does everybody else. Hmm. But I'm still gnawing (or it's gnawing me) at what exactly did Sam mean by "...how good pure intensity can feel...the vulnerability of being spanked during sex by someone [one] really want[s]." [my italics] What the hell does "vulnerability" have to do with anything? I've googled "being vulnerable," just to see, and there are a whole lot of the pseudo-wise--mostly silly-ass women, but not a few dipshit male psychotherapists--out there, prattling on about the virtues and benefits of "vulnerability." They all seem to know that the basic meaning of "vulnerable" is "woundable," but that doesn't stop them from finding something inherently positive in it.