It's weird how we have never actually really seen ourselves. Yes, we've seen ourselves in the mirror, but it is only a reflection, which means that the image that we see has been transformed in some way by light waves. A photograph is a still image, and while it captures a moment, it does not quite capture the whole moment. In the end, it makes the image really not of ourselves.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe, right?

Wouldn't it be cool, though, to have an out-of-body type of experience, to have a glimpse of ourselves? To be able to see how others see us... Or what they see in us.

Too often we belittle ourselves in our eyes. We all have doubts, even the most confident people. Or maybe I'm generalising... My friends say that I'm not at all awkward (even though I see myself as one of the most awkward people I know) but actually, to them, I look quite confident. Between you and I, though, my heart always races whenever I talk to anyone. I have to practice the stuff that I say over and over in my head before saying so out loud. I always end up stuffing up the words anyways. Sometimes, when I don't use my mind and just let the senseless words escape my lips and realise that maybe that wasn't the right thing to say... I question why people are friends with me. That's why I like text-messaging when it comes to talking about serious things. There is less chance of me saying insensitive words.

Regardless of these - of how stupid and annoying and useless I may see myself as - my friends are still there. They stay. Because maybe they see a beautiful person, who also sees the beauty in them. Maybe that's enough for them to stay, to have somebody believe in them and to have somebody to believe in. Funny... It sounds like a mirror.

I'm going to sign off for now. It's one in the morning and I have work at eight so I will need to wake up soon.

Yours,
Justine

PS: maybe it's time that I read Jean Baudrillard's whole philosophy about Simulacra and Simulation.