« "Ahuva Goldstand" isn't Ahuva Goldstand »

If you've browsed through my bio, you've probably seen my "Somov" isn't Somov self-non-description (the meaning of this will be far clearer after Lotus Effect comes out).  But, here's a similar attitude to self-concept from Ahuva Goldstand (whose haiku I featured the other day).  Here's what Ahuva Goldstand says about herself/her self:

Ahuva Goldstand is not who she says she is.

Or rather, she would be who she says she is, if she could be trusted to say anything truthful about herself, the world in general or the current state of affairs in Madagascar. Incidentally, Madagascar is the one topic she never lies about. She also never talks about it, thereby solving that problem.

When faced with an opportunity to say something about herself, Ahuva chooses, silently to herself, whether or not she will say something of merit, or completely fabricated. She will not tell you her decision, and if she does, it’s probably not true. In saying things about the general person of Ahuva Goldstand, the person who you may perceive to be Ahuva Goldstand (this perception being based solely on being told it is by said Ahuva Goldstand) will assume a trustworthy guise and proceed to lie to your face. Inversely, she may adopt a shifty look, and speak the complete and honest truth. Sometimes she mixes it up, all for sport.

So, after establishing her trustworthy qualities (or lack there of), one must understand that whether or not Ahuva was born is completely up for debate. And while this binary query of “she was” or “wasn’t” is mind-boggling all on its own, throwing in such other details as locale, time and heritage makes the problem infinitely more complex.

When answering questions about herself, Ahuva will most often, though not always, supply the one fact that is not the answer to the question at hand, leaving the nigh-infinite other possibilities as valid answers to said question.

This, in a nutshell, is what Ahuva Goldstand has to say about herself.

If she is in fact the one saying these things.

So, as you see, whether it's Pavel Somov or Ahuva Goldstand, letters are letters. Question is: who's writing these ego-descriptions to oneself?