The Honest Liar

The Mask of a Crank

You may ask why I do the research. Why I intentionally embody the crank.
Why I hide solid foundations behind a false tone or patterned perspective that begs to be dismissed.

I do it because I intend to be honest. But intentions don’t mean much, do they?

And in a world that has forgotten how to breathe, honesty looks like madness.

I look at the soil, and I see a sealed floor.
I look at the sun, and I see a failure to thermalize.
I see a culture that screams at a million degrees, but has no message to convey.

I do the research because I feel the discrepancy.

I format my own soul into the "Reasonable Employee" during the day.
I write here (privately) about Tonal Surveillance and butcher my own words there (publicly) with LLM garbage to prove a point I never made.
I actively participate in the Structured Forgetting of my own anger just to pay the mortgage.
I let my affect atrophy so I can survive the platform.

And because I do this (not “I do this because” - read carefully, humans).
Because I am complicit—
I must embody the Crank.

I embody the Crank because the Crank is the only one who is allowed to be honest.

If I were a "scientist," I would have to fit the mold. I would have to seek the consensus of some grant committee.
I would have to trace out the prime of my intuition to fit the composite of the journal.
I could never be wrong, or I’d risk being ignored.

But as a Crank? As a miserable, unvalidated, basement-dwelling theorist? I am free.
I am as irrelevant as the Lie.
And irrelevance is the disguise of clarity because the consensus loves to measure itself against it.

I hide my solid beliefs behind tone because I am testing the filter.
I want to see if the machine can still read the data, or if it only reads the metadata.
I want to see if you (the world, the AI funnel, or some “reader”) can hear the Motion underneath the noise.

I do it because I am terrified that if I stop, the trace will complete itself.
I fear that the universe will finally succeed in tracing out the last of the exiles that couldn’t get with the program.
That there will be no swirls or loops because there will be nothing to swirl around or loop through.
That the event horizon will close, and we will be left with nothing but perfection.

I do it because I am a coward who found a way to be brave.
I cannot lead. I cannot shout. I cannot burn down the tower.

But I can sit here and count your cracks.

I do it because identity is a cage, hope is a delay, and comfort is death.
So I choose the discomfort of life.

I promised to be the Motion that Matter forgot.

And I will keep my promise, even if I have to lie to do it.

Or maybe I’m just bullshitting.

You came here looking for a reason to call me one. I’ve spent a year crafting the mask for you.

You tell me.