darkwall
Well-known member
We all go around in our lives thinking that we're being watched: it is the bain and the comfort of our existences. Furthermore, it is this compulsion which leads to suicide - lonely people feel warm people as from a distance, the honourable or wronged think of their icons, and in short we see that we are watched but do not see ... cannot think in terms of our impact on others, cannot conceive of the sense of bereavement among loved ones. In other words, once the watchfulness that keeps us from solipsism is turned onto watching ourselves in their eyes, we have ceased to become aware of them in the same way that one never wonders what is inside a mirror.
This compulsion - watchfulness - is one that I cannot fully comprehend. I am guilty of it to a large extent, of course, but being the egocentrist that I am, I do not ever really do anything for anyone besides myself - I hope that they will like it, but like most people I will not choose to do any task that the feel-good factor will not recompense. Altruism aside, I care little for others' views whom I do not revere, or know and love: because I always feel that their judgement tells me more about themselves than me. Many, too, follow me on this point. They will know that while they feel watched, it is something in the nature of consciousness to be such: when we waste words on empty air, it is because the mind likes nothing better than to pretend there are two different parts of it. There is also drilled in by society a form of anthropomorphizing action into the character of good and evil - we don't break things of emotional value because we feel that sense of right and wrong pervading every extremity of touch, such as the twin desires to tear, or to caress, the things that most affect us.
I, on the other hand, am not one of those people who are unconscious of themselves - and unconsciousness of self is the best thing to have. I am so aware of the future, and that deep, bright self who might shine into it, that all my movements fold into blind aspiration. When I look into the mirror, I see two halves. One is like the angle that you look best photographed from and are always trying to find; the other looks back at me. It is he who attempts justifications for everything, yet only for that brighter sliver; and locked into a world of his two aspects is left pondering the depth of his reflection. Others watch; but I am watched, desirous of everything I am least able to apprehend. And yet, there is something within me, too, that beckons, like treasure in a fishtank or some other shallow symbol ...
Is it not possible, then, that I have become an icon to myself?
This compulsion - watchfulness - is one that I cannot fully comprehend. I am guilty of it to a large extent, of course, but being the egocentrist that I am, I do not ever really do anything for anyone besides myself - I hope that they will like it, but like most people I will not choose to do any task that the feel-good factor will not recompense. Altruism aside, I care little for others' views whom I do not revere, or know and love: because I always feel that their judgement tells me more about themselves than me. Many, too, follow me on this point. They will know that while they feel watched, it is something in the nature of consciousness to be such: when we waste words on empty air, it is because the mind likes nothing better than to pretend there are two different parts of it. There is also drilled in by society a form of anthropomorphizing action into the character of good and evil - we don't break things of emotional value because we feel that sense of right and wrong pervading every extremity of touch, such as the twin desires to tear, or to caress, the things that most affect us.
I, on the other hand, am not one of those people who are unconscious of themselves - and unconsciousness of self is the best thing to have. I am so aware of the future, and that deep, bright self who might shine into it, that all my movements fold into blind aspiration. When I look into the mirror, I see two halves. One is like the angle that you look best photographed from and are always trying to find; the other looks back at me. It is he who attempts justifications for everything, yet only for that brighter sliver; and locked into a world of his two aspects is left pondering the depth of his reflection. Others watch; but I am watched, desirous of everything I am least able to apprehend. And yet, there is something within me, too, that beckons, like treasure in a fishtank or some other shallow symbol ...
Is it not possible, then, that I have become an icon to myself?
