Questions of Self

[kirby1024]

In the last few days, I've been noticing that I'm becoming very interested in myself. Or, perhaps more correctly, in seeing myself through the eyes of others. In seeing what people see in me, in part or in whole. In seeing me in novel settings, seeing me in ways that I can't see myself in real life. Taking me apart, finding the important bits of me, and seeing them represented in strange and interesting ways.

Part of it is something that I think I've always enjoyed - talking to designadrug, I mentioned that "I like seeing people reinterpret me". designadrug mentioned that it was an interesting choice of words, and I've been meditating on that for a bit. We were talking, in particular, about photomanips of my tattoo shots, and I think that the thought of altering my visual appearance, a really visceral manner of reinterpreting a section of my self that doesn't tend to change all that often, brought some of these thoughts into real focus. I've had a few other conversations on the same subject with others, of course.

And this afternoon, walking to the shops and back, I had to ask myself, why? Why am I so interested in seeing novel aspects of myself? I don't think of myself as self-loathing in that sense - I can't claim that I don't like the self that I am, and that this interest in novel views of self is a representation of a desire to dramatically change myself. I'm fairly certain that I like the way I am, for the most part.

Perhaps it's simply an exploration of myself, something that I really didn't do a lot for a while. Maybe, now that I'm single, I'm taking the chance to use the lack of attachments to take a look at who I am, both within and without.

The best questions, sometimes, are the ones that you can't answer yourself...

Comments

[not-in-denial.livejournal.com]

Knowing how we appear to others allows us to modify our behaviour and/or appearance and/or anything else that we would like to improve in the opinions of others.

PLUS, as you already mentioned, it is an opportunity for self exploration. We only are the sum of the people around us, and all that.

Blah blah blah, I am way sleep deprived so this probably made no sense.

[designadrug.livejournal.com]

I think the best questions are the ones you are too scared to answer.

Like "why aren't you using the icon I made you?"... Nah just kidding :)

[kirby1024.livejournal.com]

I believe those questions are merely a subset of the previous category. In fact, they're... more difficult, because half the time you're so scared of the answer you don't let yourself ask the question. As such, they're rather hard to contemplate in a productive manner by yourself.

As for the second comment, I don't know what on earth you mean... ;)

[designadrug.livejournal.com]

LMAO! Wonderful... I have validation! Yay! :)

I agree about the questions... my psychologist always asked me questions that sounded rhetorical but then you realised in horror they weren't and that you didn't want to answer them...