Original 14" x 10.5", 150 dpi
notes

I see the Christian attitude towards saintliness and martyrdom to be very much an issue of stoicism. The religious attitude is that one should be in the world but not of it. One should be emotionally or spiritually detached, unmoved by "temptation" or "weakness", for the sake of retaining one's purity. Being an atheist, I think only of the experience of this in one's own body and mind, not what afterworldly reward might or might not be coming for such fortitude. Someone tries to become stoic in their attitudes because they are afraid of being hurt, or of being corrupted, but no matter what appearance they present, they are still vulnerable. So I've been told.

The source for this was St. Sebastian, an early Christian martyr who was shot with arrows when he refused to back down from his faith--another image painted many times in western history, and another classic Christian example of spiritual confidence and stoicism in the face of physical pain and bodily death.
In the center of the image is a male figure in a loincloth, bound in ropes, and leaning against a post or a tree beneath falling leaves. He looks away in calm resignation as giant needles pierce his body, pulling thread the size of rope through his flesh, and sewing stitches back and forth. A massive crowd holds needles high in the background.
The choice of using the needle & thread here instead of the traditional arrows suggests that the agent of wounding can also onstensibly act as the agent of healing, that what is supposed to patch together merely injures in a different way. I see this as an appropriate reading of religion--as an often superficially satisfying emotional support that is nonetheless imperfect and often destructive. It is also the truth about stoicism. No matter how much one attempts to be, or to appear to be unaffected by pain of any kind, one is still vulnerable, and ultimately ends up deriving pleasure and satisfaction from merely exhibiting indifference to pain.

Of course, there might also be an element of masochism involved with someone who distorts and attacks images of himself. But the personal reading isn't important here--I'm just playing a game. That's what this is all about, hiding and revealing, baring myself and playing with facades. None of this is truly about me.

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