Admittedly, I don’t find myself terribly unattractive. Perhaps not supermodel hawt, but it is a very rare day indeed where I feel I’m just plain ugly. I have a lot of issues (don’t we all), but I can’t say I’ve ever much hated mirrors.
Throughout my life there’s various pictures of myself that I’ve like. There’s also plenty that I hate… but I just don’t take great pictures. I have the opposite of angular features, ie a rather flat face, so I have many bad sides for the camera to capture. But I have good angles, and plenty often they’re captured. The digital camera has been a godsend in that… a gabillion tries for a single good shot, but even in the days of 35mm snapshot film there have been pictures of my I don’t hate.
So no. I don’t think of myself as ugly. Plenty of times I’ve thought of myself as pretty. ish.
And being a true narcissist, on days when I Look Good (™) I do have a hard time not staring at myself when I’m talking to you. Don’t worry, it’s just another manifestation of the world revolving around me. It’s nothing personal. I just have a low attachment to others. But like I said, we all have our issues.
Narcissism aside (and trust me, I really am terribly narcissistic, even when I’m not at my best), I can say I don’t really pay too close attention to the pictures of myself in which I think I Look Good (™). I look at them, sure. And I lament my current failings if I am not on par with that particular image, sure. But I don’t inspect them. I don’t connect with them in the way I should. I don’t see what’s really there.
Me.
The good and the bad and the terrible and the spectacular.
Me.
So I’m embarking on a mission to see me. See me in the past, see me in the present, and therefore, hopefully, help to get me to the me I want to see. Using images of my past selves, perhaps I can conjure up a present self (or near future, some things take a bit of time) that is like a Greek statue: all the best bits put together to make something legendary.
The best way to see, of course, is to reproduce what is being seen.
So in addition to the small list of other things I’m doing until the end of the year to kick myself back into gear, I’ll also be drawing myself. Almost exclusively, actually. Since another of my goals is to draw or paint every day… this will most often be my subject matter. Me.
Perhaps this will get me back to the me I need to be.
