On this New Year and this Wolf Moon—as the World decides if it's time or not already to start the World War—I looked up, for my now traditional Scheherazadean tribute, at how my life gets snapshotted by 𝕏 (ex‒twitter), through a selection from the last 1001 tweets that I posted on the platform.

You don't have to accompany me down the memory lane, but I don't care if you do. I got a Poisson burst of unrelated feedbacks these last weeks on me posting private things online. All from young people. In fact, from people of a different generation. One was surprised I even had my private address listed there. I replied that "in my time", everybody had their address listed in the phonebook. And also that nobody has showed up at my door, yet (and unfortunately).

When I was in high school, I actually once brought a couple of friends to the door of our teacher of technology, Mr. Raboisson, to hand over our work. At his private address—which I got from the phonebook—rather than in class. I was a prankster, I was constantly doing this sort of things, trying to perturb the universe in a way that would cause some reaction from someone or something. Mr. Raboisson came out in pyjamas, although it was well in the afternoon, to greet us at the gate of his garden. He was clearly disorientated, in shock of a situation which he didn't have time to process. But he still managed to provide some rapid comments on our papers. For me, this was pure theatrical gold, of course. I was telling him we were unsure whether he had wanted the results in octal form, and in front of this little committee seeking advices, in his PJ bottoms, he was magnanimously informing us that no, no, this was all right, that he had no doubt we would have been able to make the conversion if needed. With the full dignity one can have in pyjamas, he then thanked us for passing by and reporting our work, and went back home, saluting us with our papers in one hand, the door knob in the other and with this priceless expression of maximal confusion as to whether he should have been honored or upset by such a visit. The fact that it was several of us somehow seemed to have convinced him that this was some official matter. And people were civilized, then, so he treated us with maybe even more ceremoniality than if we had been in class, where he always wore a tie, which was rare even then.

Good memories. I was like that. I was feeling invulnerable. Was I? Or was I only pausing to impress my friends? Maybe... who knows? I don't.

Anyway, here we are today with more of me opening windows and doors on things that should be private. If that bothers you, don't look. I'm not expecting you to. Really. I'm always genuinely surprised when people tell me they've read this or that on my web. I had a web presence since before the Wikipedia, since even before Google existed. At a time when literally nobody I knew, not even this teacher of technology, was on the Internet. Go figure. Why am I doing it? Because it's a nice thing to do, to write, to commit yourself to squeeze an opinion out of your mind, to refresh your memory with an old picture, to talk to yourself. Are we even talking to anybody else but ourselves, anyway? And I have things to hide, sure, but not those. Things that I don't bring in the open, things that I hide—they exist—those, by definition, are private. We're on tautological grounds here. There are even things that I destroy. I just destroyed a big chunk of my privacy, of my inner world, no later than last night, with the Wolf Moon howling at me. How much more private and modest than that can you get?

But pictures of beautiful landscapes, of shared moments, of happy outcomes, of successful attempts at doing something, these I don't feel I should hide them. I know some people say you should respect the privacy of children and put a smiley face on them. To such people I say "Fuck you!" I don't put a smiley face on a child just as I wouldn't deface a relief of Horus and Isis in the Temple of Edfu, to "protect" and "preserve" something which cannot be shown, shouldn't be seen. I am a great admirer and devoted follower of the Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy that celebrates the victory of the iconic representations over the Byzantine iconoclasm that tried to suppress them, like the Islamic prohibition to show images of living beings, because that is imitating God. But aren't we imitations of God? Isn't everything we do—which is good, that is—an imitation of God? Isn't calligraphy a most intimate and presumptuous imitation of God? What is this nonsense? And as for idolatry, I understand a painting is not God and I understand a child is not an object, but their suppression, their censorship, making them taboo, this is imitation, namely, of the Devil. It is, as is often the case, the other way around. I want to see and I want to show. God asked me to:

14 You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds.

So here we go, in all my careless, insouciant pedantry, let me look at myself!

See also a selection of the previous 1001 tweets on the period 25 January (2019)‒22 November (2022).