HONNE
HON-neh
A person's true voice. What you actually think, said out loud.
Two Different Acts
Love Yes, Please No.
Loving somebody and pleasing them are two different acts.
Where you learn to say the true thing and hold it — with your boss, your mother, your friend, and a stranger at a market stall.
Two Voices
What You Say. What You Mean.
Touch any of them.
Pleasing somebody is a lesser act than loving them.
A person who pleases you is managing you.A person who loves you tells you the truthand lets you be displeased about it.
Girls are taught to be good, and good means easy to be around.
The one who makesis exhausted by thirty-fiveand cannot name a price at fifty.
At Its Centre
Your True Voice, And The Face Kept Up So Nobody Is Troubled
TATEMAE
tah-teh-MAH-eh
Its opposite. The face kept up so nobody is troubled.
For One Person, And For Two
The True Thing, Said At Every Age
For anybody who wants this without a year-long commitment.
For Two
A Couple
Two people learning to tell each other the truth, and to let the other be displeased about it.
For One · Young
Twenties And Thirties
Before good-means-easy has cost you a decade.
For One · Older
Forties And Fifties
When you can no longer name a price, and you know it.
For One · Older Still
Sixty And Beyond
The true thing, held, with everyone who has always expected the other.
The Structural Point
The Reason Anybody Undercharges Is That They Cannot Bear To Be Thought Difficult
So this is also an earning business. It feeds every place you have to name a price and hold it — your shopfront, your market stall, your rate, your hours. Difficult is the line inside it rather than the name on the door: the sentence you recognise yourself in, once curiosity has already brought you through.
Say The True Thing. Hold It.
Love yes. Please no.
HONNE.