leo tolstoy and his wife sonya kept secret diaries to complain about each other, then secretly read the other's journal to write angry rebuttals in their own. he tried to run away from home in the middle of the night but caught pneumonia at a train station and died.

jean-jacques rousseau wrote about childhood innocence while abandoning all five of his kids to a parisian foundling hospital with high mortality rates. he later expressed weak, self-pitying regret in his confessions after a failed attempt to locate them.

ulysses s. grant was financially ruined by his business partner in a ponzi scheme, left bankrupt and publicly humiliated. suffering from terminal throat cancer, he frantically wrote his memoirs to provide for his family, scribbling in constant pain and finishing just days before his death.

if the gut anchored our sentience, knowing would be a matter of digestion.
understanding could be phrased as absorbing, or expelling, concepts.
our core metaphors for truth could revolve around settledness in the belly, or a smooth passage.
causality could link to internal processes, an action "fermenting" a result.
personal pronouns could derive from words for stomach or core.

if hands were the seat, "i grasp" would be synonymous with "i understand."
thinking itself could be "handling" ideas.
grammar could heavily feature instrumental cases, tools as extensions of self.
verbs of crafting, shaping, and connecting would form the linguistic bedrock.
truth could be something "well-fitted" or "firmly held."
fossil words for 'self' could stem from 'these hands' or 'the maker.'

that's one councillor decommissioned.
what a fucking bleeder.
should've stayed behind his tapestries, the nosy old prick.
this knife. tools.
you use what works. grubby, sure. gets results.
one-eye knew. deception, a spear thrust. same strategy.
a job.
another piece of shit off the board.
now the disposal. always the goddamn disposal.