From "I'd Rather Talk About It" 2006 Delhi Typescript
Lex, Deepti and Valerie with Dr. Berkman discussing "Characterization"
German Bakery, Pun

I don’t even know who I am, so how can I know who is anyone else? || And do we want to dwell in that? || Is there a self? Should we discover the self? || Buying into the Western soul|| The cult of the Individual || Is it really Eastern or Western? || The Westerner considers the loss of self to be the foundation of all forms of madness || Psycho– || What is psyche? || The western mind sees surrender as masochism, and masochism as madness. The psychoanalytic world don’t move round because of love, it moves around because of an oceanic series of sodomasochistic exchanges. || How does that differ from samsara || It doesn’t. It is samsaric. But there is more to life than samsara. There is also stopping|| Surrender? || But not drowning || Why not drowning? || Even drowning? What difference does it make? || We cannot know what difference it would make unless we experience it || We can experience drowning || But not all the way. Speculation. It’s speculation. Let’s get away from speculation |

| Sadomasochism comes from a disbelieve in the validity of the unconscious, of the interior, of the personality, of the self. || What does that mean? || The masochist doubts his own personhood. The sadist doubts the personhood of others. || Persona means a mask for the stage. Personhood should be doubted, doubted as a thing in itself. It is a mask. It should be shaped. It can be whatever we like || My father talked himself out of jail I don’t know how many times, simply by putting on a very proper British accent || That’s privilege for ya || No, that’s persona. A mask, worn on stage, in the performance of a role || Persona is just on stage. We aren’t always on stage? Isn’t there something besides the stage? || The auditorium || Backstage || And what about that little room under the stage? || What?? || With the little man who pops up and tells you the lines if you forget? Once I dreamt of a stage…