“I am a Visionary, and I have perfected myself. I have elided myself unto the great political project, and become a perfect artistic flourish on the Eternal Order. It is so self-evidently true, that what else can I believe?
“I am a Visionary. The Order demands it of me to have foresight, drive, and purpose. If I have no purpose, the order has no purpose, so my purpose is being a Visionary. This means my purpose has become simply the execution of my purpose, and anything that exists below that was washed away. Purpose for purpose's sake. A mask over a conspicuous emptiness.
“I am a Visionary, nothing less, but nothing more either. I may once have been me, and there may once have been a person under the mask, but these days I sometimes doubt even that.
“I am a Visionary. I am also a sham. I find myself in conversation with those of Eunomia, those of other castes, those of other system. How laughable it must be for them. They see a Visionary, they must. Surely they see the emptiness of that name, and they who wear it, as I see it in myself and so many others.
“I am a Visionary. I see, and in turn must be seen. What can truly be guided from the shadows, that can not be guided better from the light? Each pair of eyes upon me casts a shadow, which gives one who calls themselves Visionary a space in which to hide. We guide in light, with glamour, and spectacle, and fervour, but we hide behind the glittering mask for risk of spoiling the illusion.
“I am a Visionary. More puppet than human, more cog than driver, more effect than cause. This is what Visionaries must be. Anything less and we would fail as Visionaries. With it, we fail as humans.
“I am a Visionary. See me.”
— F.L.