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Goths reject the bourgeois sense of human identity as a serious business, stable, abiding and continuous, requiring the assertion of one true cohesive inner self as proof of health and good citizenry. Instead goths celebrate human identity as an improvised performance, discontinuous and incessantly re-devised by stylised acts. ..[Goths] seldom rank sanity or calm among the highest aesthetic achievements.

from Gothic by Richard Davenport-Hines


Last week my friend called me the most contradictory person he knows. Granted, he'd had a few drinks. Ok, many drinks. He said I have the manners of a Southern Belle, but the mouth of a sailor. He said I have the face of an angel but a body built for sin. He said I have the mind of a scholar but party like a rock star.

Ah, praise like that doesnt come around often. Needless to say, I preened appropriately. I love my complications, my contradictions. I cling to my neurosis and refuse the idea of therapy. I find the "fixing" of our "problems" insufficient for the range of human experience. I have no desire to be fixed. Viva complication!

What are your contradictions? Where are the fault lines of your identity? What are your highest aesthetic achievements?