Recently I was taking a look at the medical records of someone with Asperger's. There was a fractured, moving — if not painful — narrativity to it. It was a story of perpetual regression, marginalisation and heartbreaking innocence. I read splintered fragments from psychiatric clinical notes, fully aware of that obliquely poetic angle they took, wanting to use these understatedly emotion-rich materials in my writing.
As if personal tragedy had to be appropriated, broadcasted and then enjoyed! Sometimes artists are monsters, claiming experience where experience is secondhand, occupying personae they don't even understand.
I'm not sure if empathy is dead. Is empathy (like charity) a supererogatory thing? If so, is the very act of empathy an act of misrepresentation, a misconstruing of subjective experiences, albeit one stemming from good intentions? Whut?
and because I am not enjoying the tone of this post,
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