Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer’s work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader's recognition of what the book says is proof of the book's truth.

PROLEGOMENON:

Your answers — anyone's answers — may become for another reader just such an ātmanopticon: that optical lens-like perspective someone composes that another reader, without having read it, may not ever have recognized that quality or trait within himself.

A practice/sādhana: the questions invite unguarded, thoughtful states of introspection. Time to time the answer astonishes in what it describes--an interior (அகம்) — a subject, the grammatical I, that which remains, a formulation of truth.

Return, after some time and a species of amnesia, to respond again. The earlier answers belong to someone else; the one answering now is provisional too.

The questionnaire keeps a record — subject as excavated persons in succession, bearing one name: I.

Find who sleeps.

That is what this instrument is for.

Desire, possibility, and habitA linear slope of desire, defined as a real number over expectation, meets the possibility function f(x) — which is unbounded, diverging toward an asymptote — at a single point, habit. The region between them, where desire exceeds possibility, is misery.ℝexpectationdesiref(x) possibilityhabitmiseryany possible value

a gate:

Here we meet @ a gate:

What follow are not polite questions. They are holes in the ice. Answer honestly and something cold touches the feet.

For voice input, use Handy — free offline speech-to-text.

Your answers are age-encrypted before storage, and so is your address. The database keeps a SHA-256 hash of it, to recognise your session, and an age-encrypted copy that only the key box which mails your finished questionnaire can open. We have no wish to see your email address. We use it for three things and nothing else: to send you your link, to deliver your answers to you as a PDF, and to remind you, some time later, to answer the questions again. Each of those goes out through Apple's mail servers. There is no tracking, no profiling, no analytics, and nothing is shared with anyone beyond that delivery.

Show you're a person — either way worksSix digits drawn as an image. If you cannot see it, answer the question that follows instead.

This keeps scripts from using the site to mail strangers. Capitals and accents don't matter. A wrong answer brings a new image and a new question, with everything else you wrote kept.