Alas, all those facial lines you attribute to positive causes like smiling and thinking, are actually the result of one thing...aging skin. Nothing wrong with that.
Not to worry...
You're gonna - continue to more than - get by with a little help from your friends...
Sounds like you have somebody - not just anybody - to love...
.........
Lucky woman...
"and I post photos of myself all day long, I admit"
Why?? This really would be a far more interesting question to address in an essay by you.
2
The last line in the article sounds like a song lyric.
What song?
Turning out the light is the best way to dismiss the variety of conflicted versions you have of yourself and others have of you.
In darkness there are no critics.
"Two weeks ago I took part in a meditation practice pioneered by a colleague at Barnard, Tara Well, called 'mirror meditation,' which is pretty much what it sounds like ...”
No, "mirror meditation" was not "pioneered" by your colleague at Barnard. As long as there have been mirrors, Indian yogis have included mirror gazing or "tratak" in meditation. Osho was just one of the yogis who popularized it in the US when he came here decades ago. You are mistaking discovering or branding for pioneering.
I wish you good luck in your yogic pursuits though. It might even lead you to what your grandmother was REALLY saying about your heart.
I'm glad for you that you can be over this so easily. Excellent choice in family. But blind women, old women, women of color, on and on to the level of #MeToo numbers, put on the armor of appearance nearly every day to stave off, hopefully, at least one avenue of criticism.
2
I don’t think selfies are the worst thing in the world. Keeping old photographs of yourself can be quite beneficial. We don’t experience time. Rather, we live in an eternal present. We don’t even have a way of representing time. Time is something we construct in our memories. Looking at old pictures of ourselves is a way of constructing time and change. We see an old photo, are shocked, and wonder, “Who is that person?” Jenny’s grandmother says it’s not the outward face we present to the world, but rather the inner heart, the inner disposition, that is our real self. But just as the outward appearance changes, so does the inner disposition. Thus we have the expression, “She had a change of heart.” If the outward appearance is impermanent and the inner disposition is impermanent, who in fact is the real self? Or is there one? Is it possible that when we turn out the light we see emptiness? Is that what really belongs to us? Are we in fact, nothing at all?
6
JamesEric: What a remarkable reflection! Thank you.
2
I'm thinking you are atheist-or agnostic, by your reply. I know my outward appearance is forever changing, but my inner spirit is a constant. At 68 y/o, this is how I live my life: I'm not my hair, my body, my accolades, but something bigger that gets me up in the morning. My body is simply a suitcase that carries the inner me. I'm what's inside.
There is nothing new about selfies. Before iPhones, anyone could and did aim cameras at themselves, with or without success. The desire was always there.
What has changed is that the technology has A) made the process a snap (excuse the pun), but worse B) made the act a public demonstration.
The selfie explosion is a worldwide phenomenon. Researchers have argued that this “me-focus” is responsible for decreases empathy and kindness. Research in developmental psychology shows that we need face to face contact to develop a sense of self and empathy for others. We now spend more time alone and on our devices, looking at movies or still images that don’t reflect us back the way real people do in real-time. Selfies may be an attempt to get this reflection that we’ve lost from face to face contact. In my work with mirrors, we’ve found that people can use their own reflection as a way to recognize themselves instead of constantly searching for ways to be seen by others. Through clearly not a substitute for relationships (!), it’s better than a selfie when no one like Jenny’s grandmother is around to help us remember who we really are.
2
Check out www.headless.org. There are some wonderful experiments for seeing who we are that involve mirrors and pointing. It is a great relief when we find out who we are.
3
Beautiful. Thank you again for a wonderful, enlightening story.
4
distorted mirror
in the culture of image
selfie reflection
1
As I read this story of the blind woman taking a selfie I had a different reason why she did it. I attended a meeting with an assistive devises professional for handicapped people recently. He showed us many handicap apps that are available on smartphones. One mind boggling app, the blind user could aim the phone camera at any directions and the app would process the image and describe it to the blind person in detail. Go figure!
2
I visited a friend who just returned from a trip to Europe. During the evening he did a "slideshow" of the sights he visited. The first photo had a picture of him filling up about 90% of the photo with just the top of the Eiffel Tower visible at the left. The Arc de Triomphe was also relegated to a subservient roll to my friend's ridiculous facial expression taking up the entire foreground. At least I could see Big Ben in entirety because it was way above his "V" for victory sign made with the fingers of his left hand.
I NEVER take selfies and rarely have photos with me in it when photographing interesting subjects. Why? Because if I took the photo EVERYONE knows I was there so why do I have to be in it (to ruin the view!) I've taken one selfie in my lifetime and that was by accident.
16
That is exactly the way I feel, SAH! Once in awhile, with my husband on a great trip, a waiter or someone would offer to take a photo with the 2 of us & I'll comply. But always having to have one of us in the photo (Eiffel Tower) is annoying. I've never taken a selfie.
1
I bet you're a guy - definitely not a female under 35. All they do in life is selfie. (I think "selfie" should be a verb as well as a noun.)
1
• I thought about the person I had been when I was his age and the person I have since become, these many decades later.
And THAT person you might not have ever become but for your grandmother's admonition in front of the mirror: “That’s not you! And that’s not me! The real you is in here! In your bosom!””
How lucky for you!
7
When we look in a mirror or share a photo of ourselves, who do we see? We see AN IDOT!
3
Even people who have white canes, and appear to be "blind" may have some limited vision. I would not assume every person with a white cane is "Helen Keller" blind.
6
Narcissism is nothing new, it just may be more evident now with the advent of technology that can be easily tailored to fit the needs of the self-absorbed. What does bother me though is how “selfies” indirectly or directly affect others. I just returned from a trip to Italy. I was amazing at how much foot, bike and car traffic was routinely disrupted by the need to take that perfect selfie.
3
I don't really think that is narcissism. True narcissism is destructive to others in a very horrible way. Taking selfies might be annoying to traffic but I think it is just a human desire to share where one is, and what one is doing, with others. And quite naturally, wanting the best effect !
1
Now and then, at the sight of my name on a visiting card, or of my face photographed in a group among other faces, or when I see a letter addressed in my hand, or catch the sound of my own voice, I grow shy in the presence of a mysterious Person who is myself; is known by my name, and who apparently does exist. Can it be possible that I am as real as anyone?
~Logan Pearsall Smith
8
Those of us who saw an “adventurer” in the mirror collected patches from cities or landmarks visited to sew on our backpacks. The modern “check in” to a venue with a posted selfie could be a form of that adventurer’s badge.
3
I’m reminded of the young man, who took a selfie with Justin Timberlake in the middle of his halftime show. Instead of fully enjoying the moment, he was distracted with taking a selfie. Another type of common selfie I’ll never understand is the one taken in a mirror in a bathroom. I still think of the bathroom as a private place. And how many lives have been ruined (politicians, young men and women, etc.) because of selfies taken and not meant for public distribution? Please explain.
3
Many people are seeing impaired, use a white cane but are not totally blind. Did the author ask the woman? I was recently asked to send a selfie to someone who wanted to see my physical being. I agreed because I wanted the recipient to be attracted to me; not that a likeness of my self would please anyone but my mother, then I thought what a good exercise for all men, young men in particular. For once I was being judged by the opposite gender strictly by my physical appearance, what men do to women all the time. Its not a great feeling. What about my wicked sense of humor, or piercing intellect? How about my heart or generosity, nope, my nose is too damn big. Selfies and the mirror tell lies, but its not the reflection or the picture; it is the viewer.
3
For several years in my youth, without considering it, I believed my reflection in a mirror was an image of myself, until one day I was sharing a mirror with someone else and seeing his reversed image, I did not recognize him as he appeared in the mirror. The image was not the same as when I looked directly at him. Mirrors deceive us by flipping everything they reflect from left to right.
I agree with you and your grandmother. An image, whether properly oriented in a photograph or reversed by a mirror, is not me. I am not my body -- I think.
Thanks for the cool story about your grandmother and for the Beatles lyric that punctuates it.
3
On the positive side, what I see with selfies is a person's wish to show themselves, to "come out" and say, "this is a moment I choose to share with you."
On the bad side, there's really a lack of taste or sharing involved. Who REALLY wants to look at yet another person smiling at their phone while staging themselves in RandomBathroomMirror945? Why is there no attempt to look the camera and therefore the future viewer in the eye? Instead, the self-photographer appears to be engaging only with him/herself, smiling at the device and the view they see through the device rather than considering overall effect or connection with an audience outside that device. If we were intended to share rather than simply click "like" or <3 then couldn't we at least expect an attempt at engagement with outselves, the viewer? Evidently not. And it's a personal affront if you don't "like" the self-engagement of the poster.
I see a big difference between the self-portraits of paintings of 100 or mroe years ago and the reflected, self-gazing "selfies" of now. I also see a big difference between the "selfie" that seeks to engage rather than the "selfie" that only keeps playing hall-of-mirrors with itself and wants to accumulate the latest social wealth of "likes" instead of adding to a real vision of sociability.
2
The "selfie" culture is hard for me to understand.My grandchildren take endless pictures of themselves and share them.An hour later the photo is just about the same as it was moments before.My apartment now is filled with pictures I took of them as babies, toddlers and teens and each reminds me of a moment in time.Each picture is framed and helps me remember a precious scene from their childhood.For me the pictures tell a story and are not just transient flickers on a screen.I treasure the stories and the chance to hold the pictures in my hand and gaze at them until I can again hear their voices and smile as I did years ago.
13
What a lovely story. Thanks for sharing it.
5
I've noticed that young people taking selfies know just exactly how to pose, how to smile, how to lift their heads for their photos. I've also wondered how it will be for them 30, 40, 50 years down the line when they have to start realizing that aging does indeed get us all and it's not so easy to smile and head tilt your best profile any more.
9
This article was just lovely. Thank you for sharing! :-)
4
People take selfies because life isn't lived until it is represented. A selfie is a way to represent lived experience. This notion was touched upon way back in the movie 'Slacker.' I am sure Sartre might have said something similar. Berkeley said "esse est percipi."
I take selfies to show my body online in the the hope that women with similar bodies will want to meet my body. But, more generally, I think people under 40 feel like a moment isn't lived until it is represented. I think such a notion is fully in keeping with Existentialism and high Modernism.
3
But representation isn't lived experience, it's a symbol of assumed lived experience, often mis-represented whether intentionally or not.
11
What about just living a lived experience and not representing it to make it real? People take selfies and post them because they want to share their story or because they like people to look at them and appreciate them. I find the selfie a disturbing sign of these often disturbing times.
2
I always disagree with people from Porland.
It depends on how you think consciousness works. Is perception experience, or is perception filtered through some sort of proto-linguistic machinery in the brain? Kant talked about forms of intuition, but I am not smart enough to discuss Kant. Kant, I think, would deny the type of immediate access to experience that you suggest. How much of experience is reflection, and how much of reflection is imagistic?
Dogs have the same senses we have, but most people assume that they have very different types of experience than humans have.
Also, we project meaning upon events. My cursory study of contemporary philosophy has informed me that philosophers routinely argue about the difference between things and facts. I am not 100% sure how define a fact as a phenomenon.
I am sure, however, that a photograph is not a symbol. It's not a metaphor or a metonym either. I am not even sure that a photo is a sign, going by the definition of sign hewn from ignorance by such great minds Saussure, Frege, and Peirce. I haven't read that stuff in fifteen years.
An alternative idea is to sit and look closely upon another person's face (rather than one's own). If that individual is seated directly across from you and the encounter lasts for a few a minutes or more, empathy and understanding can grow after the initial awkwardness. I've tried this in a few classes where we discuss the self/other relationship, and the experiment is usually very revealing to students who have grown up in the era of selfies and the virtual worls of Facebook (rather than face-to-face engagements). Essentially, it is less indulgent version of Marina Abramovic's performance art, "The Artist is Present" which one can view here: https://vimeo.com/72711715
7
There's a great essay by Chomsky in one of his books about how people who are successful have an impossible time actually seeing themselves, their long lives of conformity to the path of success kills not only their self awareness, but their ability to think outside the box and therefore to contribute to meaningful change. Recorded as an audio lecture, he tells this smack-down to a class of Harvard students, speaking to them about themselves.
When he finishes they applauded him in a way that demonstrates that though they heard him and grasped the concept, they did not accept that they were included in, in fact the object of, his analysis. One of Chomsky's bugaboos is the ruining nature of admission to Ivy Leagues.
If you're 59 and you think noting that your face in the mirror is not that of a youngster is revelatory wisdom I suggest you hang in there, you have a lot more revelations in store.
16
Well, thank heavens for my iPhone X with its portrait mode + stage lighting that makes my UVA induced damage disappear here. In my selfie I'm wearing a European SPF with chemicals NOT approved by the FDA. I pretty much pasted this selfie across all my accounts because it's so graphic. Blacked out background, looks good even in minuscule form. I don't mean looks good = I'm attractive. I mean looks good = graphic + bold.
Much aging is caused by UVA. We don't need SPF we need PPD or Broad Spectrum with a NUMBER after it. Like SPF 50 Broad Spectrum 5 which is about the best you're gonna get in this country. We're 18 years + counting behind Europe on sunscreen. My SPF here is SPF 50 PPD 42 which means I'm protected for 8 hours of UVB + 7 hours of UVA.
Sigh. I was born at the wrong time. There was no Avobenzone in the 1970s + zinc was the stuff on the lifeguard's nose. Europeans have been using photo stable chemical sunscreens with much better UVA protection since like 1992.
My favorite part of this article was the "Who do you see when you look in the mirror." I am stunned when I look in the mirror. When did THIS happen? Thanks UVA.
4
I don't agree with your grandma. I think what we look like is part-- an important part-- of who we are. Our physical self is what makes first impressions and shapes people's reactions. Of couse, there's a difference between judgment and perception, but instincts about appearances matter too.
In addition, we carry our history in our appearance. I see my long dead mother in my adult face;I have my father's mouth. These things are important and they make me who I am. I think of these things when I look in the mirror, I see the history of "me." This platitude that says the outside isn't the "real" you is not true.
10
In Stalin's Russia the government would often erase the image of someone in a group or single setting If they were out of favor with the regime. I guess that would be the opposite of a selfie. We could call it a "nothing."
4
Ancient Hindu gurus gave this statement as a meditation mantra. Kah Aham? Who am I? The 20th century mystic Ramana envouraged seekers to ask this question persistently. Your grandmother lnew the answer.
3
A beautiful article about self acceptance and self compassion.
But respecting selfies, are they really any more ridiculous than our constantly photographing scenery? You can almost always download a better picture taken by a professional or good amateur than anything you're likely to take. A selfie, I think, is a way of putting yourself in the scene; of recording your experience there.
But it makes more sense, I think, the enjoy the here and now than to waste that joy by trying to record it.
3
I disagree. The outdoors constantly changes. My home has 36 acres of woods behind it. I am always seeing something different & snapping photos. It is entirely different than snapping photos of your own face. You want to look at your face, there's always a mirror. On FB, I see people posting their faces all the time, pouting, smiling, making weird faces (like the annoying duck face)...it is fun for awhile. But, I gravitate to the outdoor or great architecture or monument photos. In regard to "downloading" professional photos, 2 things: (1) the photo you took represents your experience & memory (that's why they invented photo albums (2) today's phone cameras often look just as professional as a photo taken by a good amateur or even a professional.
3
I look in the mirror and say "Where did this old lady come from"? and then laugh. What is the alternative? At least I am here to laugh about it.
I don't think a selfie of me, if I knew how or cared to take one, would show the true me, grey hair and all and laughing constantly at the folks who have to photograph themselves to put on social media. Who actually cares?
8
Lovely. I guess you got by with a little help from your friends
4
Like the selfie itself, painfully self-absorbed.
4
"And when we share selfies — and I post photos of myself all day long, I admit — what version of ourselves is it we are sharing?"
I certainly hope you are exaggerating.
What can people be thinking? Breathless visitors racing through the Metropolitan Museum and taking selfies but never lingering at a work of art, selfies on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade while a magnificent red sunset, unseen, backs behind Governors Island, selfies on class trips (kids learn early).
Video selfies while molesting children.
We have the right President for such goings on.
But I admire the blind woman soldiering on, taking that selfie.
And I admire your coming to grips with age and eschewing the nonsense so many women go through to remain "young-looking."
7
People that spend the majority of their lives worrying about how they look are the saddest people in the world.
18
The purpose of a selfie on a cell phone is mostly taken as a picture to be shared on social media. It is pure narcissism which validates the selfie taker's existence. It is true that a person's personality is in their hearts not in their phones. A friend of mine who is not the best looking guy in the world, was able to have many girlfriends because of his artistic guitar playing. It was his heart they were interested in, not his face. Kids need to learn that it is what's inside that counts and stop taking so many (please look at me) selfies.
11
How you see yourself depends on the angle of rotation about an axis.
When you look into a mirror you certainly don't see yourself as others see you. First, the image is reversed. Second, we subconsciously compose our faces when we look in a mirror, setting the right angle, and blotting out unattractive features. Selfies are ugly to me, perhaps for those reasons.
5
Good column, Ms. Boylan. Though it may be counterintuitive, you are at your most thoughtful, unexpected, and clear-eyed best when you are *not* writing on transgender issues.
wonderful column. thank you.
2
Shmaltzy. And spoken like a person who doesn't like what they see in the mirror. Some of us do.
If you want to take a picture of yourself by yourself, that picture is almost certainly not worth taking.
2
I self-objectify. I do not look in a mirror and say 'yeah, those puppet lines around my mouth are because I smile a lot and I feel really great about them." I don't like those wrinkles. More power to those who do. But, I look in the mirror and say to myself, "Gee, I really wish I had the face I had at 25. But, it's still a good face, especially when I smile. And now I've got to go do something interesting."
3
I recently banged my head and got a little scar just above my right eyebrow. I see it every time I look in the mirror now. But I was shocked the other day to see a close up picture of myself and my first thought was "how did that scar move to the other side of my head?". I'm 60 years old (and not totally stupid) and I'm still surprised by the fact that what we see in the mirror is not what we look like to others. And that's only our external features.
"O wad some Power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us!" -Burns
5
Your poignant essay invigorated me. Thank you. I do worry that human beings (and I am not just referring to teenagers) propensity for staring into an iPhone or mile phone is NOT the same thing as staring at one's image in a mirror. I worry that as human beings we are becoming disenchanted with active and engaged humanity and addicted/brainwashed within the terabytes of digital information. No, I am not a technophobe. In fact, I have been involved with the development of digital media since the beginning. But, during the past decade... one too many times I have witnessed or observed human beings opting out for staring at their phone screens (often a vapid stare) instead of embracing the beauty of the natural world, a beloved pet or child or grandmother. It's disturbing. Don't get me wrong digital media provides people of all ages with useful access to powerful digital tools. Screw drivers are useful valuable tools to but I wouldn't try to use one while making love.
8
What a marvelous article. I’ve also been told that when we look in the mirror we don’t see our actual physical shell. Rather, we see what we want to see, which might be an image that might have been true 10 or 15 years ago. I don’t know if this is true but for what it’s worth (maybe nothing). Again, a marvelous article.
5
I take the occasional photo with myself in it, when I'm doing something exhilarating and fun, to capture the moment. But my favorite selfies of all, which I take often, are the ones where I'm looking into the eyes of someone I love and I'm having an authentic conversation, or when I'm helping someone. That's the selfie that touches my heart.
3
Reflect on the reflector reflecting the reflection.
(Your grandmother was correct.)
8
Maybe the the blind woman takes the selfie as an act of simply sharing her experience - where she is, what she is doing, how she feels - like others do. It's almost a defiant act. Why not share this with her friends, like they do?
10
Thank you for this lovely article!
5
Great ending!
7
Coco Chanel said something about how at twenty you have the face that nature gave you, and at sixty you have the face that you have earned. At fifty-nine I peer into the mirror each morning to see where I have taken myself.
34
A lovely piece.
I have wondered about the current selfie generation. Do they realize that while everyone is broadcasting, no one is really tuning in. An endless flow of digital trash
28
Not digital trash. I would rather say digital debris. Little fragments of our lives, strewn across many sites, pell mell, and many platforms.
6
I knew I has "graduated" when I would walk my Rottweiler on a country road and men in passing pickup trucks would look admiringly at my dog and not at me.
32
That is the Best! Thank you for a great and much needed laugh! :)
We get by with a little help from our friends.
8
“Selfies” are about the most ridiculous waste of time I can think of. Not to mention the obvious narcissism, further embedded into every facet of our culture. What exactly is a selfie supposed to represent ?....an image that has been manipulated/filtered/edited/cropped/etc to post on some “social” network in a an effort to express an authentic self. So much for authenticity. Of course, people have a right to do stupid things and express themselves....I would just rather not wait behind these people in museums and other public venues while they feed the expectations of their social media “friends”. Getting the perfect picture to prove something to someone. Social media is anything but social, authentic or meaningful.
61
It's like they are commodifying or branding themselves. I just don't get it, but I'm 54, what do I know.
3
In a way I don't get it -- but in another way I do. I never take selfies and don't even like being photographed.
But I see in my relatives and friends, a number of pretty narcissistic individuals who do nothing but post on social media all day, about the most trivial stuff -- what they eat -- what they wear that day -- their pets -- nothing of any importance.
One sister in law who is a master narcissist -- her own PARENTS have said about her that "Cindy is the star of her own movie -- which is an autobiography all entirely about herself!" I don't think Cindy (*not her real name) is remotely alone. A lot of folks think this way and social media was like god's gift to them -- it let them be "superstars in their own mind" -- and stars pose for ultra flattering, retouched photos of their adorable selves. Narcissists never tire of their own image nor of talking about THEMSELVES.
3
And what about "selfie sticks" a personal bugaboo of mine. Geesh - a selfie is one thing, but carrying a stick to hold the phone further away must be the height of narcissism!
When I saw Obama shooting a Selfie during the funeral of Nelson Mandela I knew we got the wrong President.
6
Not the funeral, a memorial. It was 4 hours long and it was celebration of Nelson Mandela's life. Should he have done it, probably not; but it's hardly the same as taking a selfie at Auschwitz.
4
NO. we have the WRONG president Now man.
When we look in a mirror, we see ourselves, "flipped", mirrored. When we take a selfie, we see ourselves as others see us, real, and thus try to confirm our beauty. To truly find our beauty, we need to put on a smile and lose ourselves in others that are less fortunate. There we will find our best selfies and it will be confirmed!
11
"When we take a selfie, we see ourselves as others see us, real."
I have found that when forced to look at people's selfies, I see that their faces are distorted, their arms' length unable to render them as others see them. Kind of like the mirrors at Steeplechase.
3
Not much is less real than a selfie -- they are nearly always doctors-- you only see the 15th one, after all the "bad shots"were discarded -- the idea is to present a cosmetic, prettified version of yourself with flattering lighting, makeup, clothes.
The part I can't stand is the "duck face" -- where some ordinary person puckers up their mouth and sucks in their cheeks, apparently thinking "this makes me look just like a fashion model!"
4
The same can be said about social media and what we and others post. Is what is shown really me or only what I want others to think of me. I might be smiling for the camera but in reality miserable and using social media as a way to make others think how I should or want to feel. Indeed, all is not what it seems, at least in the world of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
6
There are some people I know very well in real life, whose social media "personalties" are all prettified selfies -- pix of them at parties or restaurants -- the fancy foods they eat -- adorable pix of children or grandkids -- on social media, you would think they are happy, delightful and having the most fun life imaginable.
BUT IN REAL LIFE....I know they are depressed, angry, sullen....have financial problems. The kids they show are screwed up. The fancy clothes? bought on credit, like the expensive restaurant meals. They are all on anti-depressants and meds for mood disorders!
The social media account is ALL smoke & mirrors.
2
The selfie trend was perplexing enough, but the fact that people are now, through the assistance of various applications designed for this purpose, posting photos of themselves which in no way actually resemble them, is especially disheartening. A number of my friends and acquaintances on social media post photographs of themselves looking bizarrely smooth, with enlarged eyes, enhanced (or diminished) features, etc. I'm not talking teens or twenty-somethings playing with Snapchat, but adults in their forties and beyond. The trend seems to be to post these quasi-likenesses and then wait for the complimentary comments to come from similarly-inclined (or, conversely, unknowing) others. Instead of the occasional vacation selfie or random photo with friends or loved ones, the entire intent seems to be to fan a (falsely-rooted) vanity. Perhaps this is simply an amping-up of the dopamine hits that we get from social media "likes," where in this case it is the individual's ersatz appearance that is getting the attention, but I can only imagine how crushing it is to look in the mirror at the unaltered version of oneself when the best face one puts on for the world doesn't, in fact, exist.
38
Not all poems rhyme. Lovely. Thank you.
6
Artists used to paint self-portraits. This is just the modern version, albeit with a lot of wannabe artists.
25
They usually only painted one and did not distribute it to the whole world.
4
The best artist self-portraits were kinda ruthless too, not exactly instagram material. Rembrandt, Chardin, Van Gogh. Even the photographers - Nan Goldin, Helmut Newton, Mapplethorpe.
http://faculty.wiu.edu/D-Banash/eng299/LacanMirrorPhase.pdf
Lacan argues (among many other things) that seeing ourselves in a mirror gives us a misconception about what it means to be an "I". Bound, concrete, unchanging, whole, individual. A false reality. (Seeing ourselves in a mirror is just one example of the way we problematically objectify ourselves and give ourselves a misunderstanding of what it means to be.)
As your article suggests, we don't have to be able to see in order to make these mistakes
3
Lacan's idea of seeing ourselves as "a concrete whole" is what we need to see and feel in order to function in society. Otherwise, we are but unmanageable parts--out of control "IDs" or, conversely, sanctimonious "Super Egos" who must become holy men, humans who can survive only in caves, our religious and uncompromising "selves" relegating us to the lifestyle of hermits. The "ego" functions as a "stabilizing" (although quite neurotic) "middle" by which we can integrate with others and ourselves. A person with no sense of an integrated "self" becomes a Charlie Manson or a Ted Bundy. We should be aware of the artificial construct of "self" but be grateful that it does exist, as without it, we're doomed to be nothing but brutal, uncaring animals, viciously ruled by instinct rather than reason.
2
Yes and Buddhist thought suggests that the self is an illusion and that it is also a mistake to think that we initiate our thoughts or even that our thoughts and feelings belong to us. Rather we are like rainbows that arise and pass away just as ideas and emotions arise and fade away.
The reflexivity behind taking a selfie is the basis of both empathy and narcissism. Our cultural moment tends to the latter.
8
I live on Kauai and we have a lease cabin ten minutes walk from the west rim of Waimea Canyon. Sometimes I walk my dog to an excellent viewing place that often has hundreds of tourists a day stopping there. I am amazed at how many of them are only willing to dash up to the rail and without even looking at this amazing place with a wonderful large waterfall dropping down the far side of the canyon turn away from that place and put it in the background of yet another "selfie". Then off they go to check off another "selfie-ish" destination.
They don't watch the clouds, taste the fresh mountain air, or quiet themselves enough to hear the sound of the water falling hundreds of feet.
Needless to say I do not take "selfies' or even own a device to do it with. I much prefer to commune with my beloved Earth who made me and who will surely take me back when she is through with me.
67
To be alive is a gift . To age is very special I think the parents of those 17 people who were slaughtered in Florida and all across the country wanted there loved ones to live to graduate from high school and grow old.
The measure, of a person is how they live there lives. Maybe we are so shallow that selfies documenting nothing is important . because we are so disconnected from the real world. I am not sure what this article was telling me so I apologize for not getting the deeper meaning.
12
There is definitely something weird about "selfies." Taking a group photo in a booth is fun, and I remember setting up the camera on a rock or some other prop to take pictures with a shutter timer of my then fiancee and me to keep for posterity. But just a solo shot of myself? It seems pathetic. And posting selfies on social media, triply pathetic? On the other hand, the honest truth is that whenever I see a picture with me in it that I don't like, my goal has forever been to erase it. And now, as I have gone through my 60s and sit in my early 70s, "vanity" has taken over completely in this realm, i.e., few if any photos of me survive. I dare say all of us whose middle name isn't Narcissus feel the same way. Conclusions? As Jennifer Finney Boylan's grandmother summed it up, the real person isn't what's in the photo. Keep the great photos, maybe even take a few of yourself, but don't worry that much about how you look.
10
Of late, when I’m at the store people will often ask if I’d like to have help with this or that and I usually say, no thanks. It finally puzzled me enough that I decided to take a selfie. When I looked at it, I finally realized why they’ve been asking, I’m old.
37
I'd rather take pictures of the things and people around me. I see no reason to take a selfie. I do see reasons to photograph falling snow, birds, flowers, rivers, the back of an excited child, people at the farmers' market, pets, squirrels, chipmunks, dragonflies, but not myself. My most recent picture of myself is the I had to have for my renewed passport.
There's more to the world than selfies, much more.
27
I also like what your grandmother said. I have a tendency to go off on the young and the practice of selfies but I know it's not confined only to them. What makes me laugh is how people, children, have already learned to pose in order to have the best effect in the photo. I am either terribly unphotogenic, or don't know how to pose. I always end up looking like I'm having a seizure, and have only taken two selfies, don't even know how to hold the phone correctly. We're a very self conscious culture. I think we'd do better if we looked outward more often than we looked at ourselves.
9
Love your columns, Jennifer. Thanks.
13
So we have some "you do you" and "it's all about what's on the inside, not the outside, that counts" woo-woo and a coy confession that the writer loves to take photos of herself and post them on social media.
6
The most interesting people among us are those who care little about how they look on the exterior. And they're not snapping selfies.
24
To have no ability to see beneath your own surface would by definition make you a shallow person and a poor writer. This beautifully unique and artistic piece proves you are neither.
6
Vanity, thy name is human. People take lots of selfies, in part because they have learned that others first impression of them, their appearance, leads to irrational conclusions - if they are pleasing to look at. Their own self-esteem may depend substantially on their appearance. Lots of research shows that people, knowing nothing else about two people, will assess the more "attractive" one to be more likeable, more competent, more intelligent, etc etc. In other words, people assess others "what's inside", by their appearance. Other information that we learn over time can change that impression, but a first impression, no matter how "superficial", is harder to change than no impression. A smile will make a person more attractive than a frown. People would rather look at an "attractive" face than an "unattractive" one - "not facially attractive" TV anchors do not generally fare well in their careers. No matter they may be superstars on the radio. We discern the "likeability" of a person from a face, based on no other information, and the cues may be different from the cues for "attractiveness" (depends on the assessor, not the assesse). What happens to the influence of attractiveness as we gather other kinds of information? Attractiveness makes it easier to initiate a relationship more often than not - does it help us sustain one?
There is much, much more behind the selfie than meets the eye.
8
We hope to see how we're seen in selfies. It seems most popular among the young, most likely because they're still discovering their self-worth and superficial aspects are easy to start with. I rather like your grandmother's approach, in which she suggested (I suppose) that you are how you feel. How you relate to others emotionally and intellectually—and how you treat others—will influence their view of you more than any selfies can ever convey. And if you treat others with compassion and caring, you'll hopefully feel contentment and appreciation within, when your looks no longer sustain the interest they did in younger days. Hopefully we have been passing this wisdom on to our sons and daughters as they learn to build upon who they are to become adults.
3
When she said, "In here...", what does that mean?
The images of our faces or bodies, which we are naturally attached to, are not our essence -- they are merely singular-point-of-view reflections of the physical aspects of our existence -- they are completely arbitrary configuarations contingent on perspective (the art kind) and even time and light.
So what is "in here..."?
We may think it's mental thoughts and images, but they, too, are contingent and largely arbitrary: do you think on purpose? Same for emotions...we don't "do" emotions, they happen. Hardly qualify as "I" any more than passing sensations do.
What's left? Knowing. The presence of consciousness by which we are aware of the simple fact of our living being. In other words, we are not objects, like physical, mental or sensational experiences -- we are what *knows* those transient experiences. We are not object but subject. Knowing itself.
Looking in a mirror or taking a selfie show only objects. We cannot see with our eyes something non-physical, but knowing itsrlf is not physical. It is the ultimate human handicap to identify with anything else, be it physical, mental, emotional, national, racial, familial, interest group or even sports team, a handicap that leads to all manner of trouble and delusion, right up to and specifically including war.
*Why* we identify with anything else is the question.
5
I think. Therefore I am.
-Descartes
As you imply, we are not nouns. We are verbs. Humans being.
4
I spend less than 30 seconds a day looking in the mirror and, when I do, I see an average looking fellow who I think I know pretty well.
Other than testing a new cell phone's camera, I don't think I've ever taken a "selfie."
Emerson said, "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
As to my exterior, I have very little concern other than to avoid visual offense.
It is "what lies within" that is important to me - not only regarding myself but others.
I have seen old people die painful deaths and can tell you that their souls still soar in my heart on the wings of the love I had for them.
None of it has anything to do with the shells in which those souls resided.
It is not the light which makes us human, it is the source of that light within us.
88
Didier.....I see a stunningly beautiful man when I look at your words.
Drop-dead gorgeous.
20
So does my wife who looks past my outward appearance and sees something shining that no selfie could ever capture.
And, in my eyes, the feeling's mutual.
1
In my neuroscience course I was told that we freeze the perception of our self at around the age of 35. I am now 71. When I look in the mirror I perceive, rather than see, a younger me. When I look at a photo of me I wonder "Who is that old, white haired guy?".
71
I dream seemingly continuously when asleep and I'm always somewhere in my mid-thirties.
9
A very thoughtful piece. As I was reading it the second time, I started wondering what Donald Trump sees in the mirror. I would like to know, but it is the one thing about Trump that I am pretty sure we will never know.
Certainly he likes selfies, but is he doing them more to conceal than reveal?
4
Donald Trump will never see himself in any mirror, selfie, or any other apparatus, but some of us can see him clearly.
1
I suspect that when Trump looks in the mirror first thing in the morning and for however long it takes to “arrange” and glue down what’s left of his bleached locks, what he sees ahead of him is another “bad hair day” and it’s driving him crazy. It’s just so unfair!
"...I post photos of myself all day long, I admit..." The thoughts on introspection and meditation notwithstanding (and yet another irrelevant reference to "the age of Trump") are all well and good, I suppose, but perhaps you should be pondering WHY you feel the need to post so many pictures of yourself with such frequency. It certainly can't be because people, even close friends and relatives, really want to see you doing so! Frankly we all know people who do that and, honestly, it's a dreadful bore. Another poster's comment about being "self-indulgent" is apt, and that too comes from within - and has nothing whatsoever to do with who sits in the Oval Office.
14
I believe such people are winsomely seeking that others aver or confirm that the selfie is so "you"--which will help the selfie taker figure out who he or she is. Something like that. "Tell me who I am, I can't tell myself." I don't intend that to be insulting.
4
The selfie doesn't seem as odd when you consider that the woman with the white cane probably is not completely blind—probably has low vision. Low enough to be "legally blind," but enough vision to look at photographs up close, and enough to know exactly how everything that she is wearing "looks."
36
I think Jennifer is smart enough to know that, and also cynical enough to pretend not to, so as to make a more flavorful point.
3
Hard to be well groomed and well dressed when you can't see at all!
"Hard to be well groomed and well dressed when you can't see at all!"
You know, O'Brien, that's not true. I know a blind man who's always very natty. Nice shirts, nice trousers, coordinated jacket, shaved, the works.
Shoelaces tied, too.
What he really hates is when people give him the wrong change at the store. Your comment wasn't mean-spirited, but it edges into that territory.
3
I love the youtube of the little girl looking at herself in the bathroom mirror and chanting, "I like myself, I like myself...I like my hair, I like my house...." Not so much Trump's incessant, "I like myself...I like myself..."
4
I’m a grandmother who will pass along your grandmother’s legacy to her daughter and granddaughter. You are not your image. Your true self is in your bosom. That last word might be the one that makes the lesson stick.
3
So I still don't know why all these people take endless photos of themselves.
37
There is a contemporary Christian lyrics that begs, "Tell me, once again, who I am to You, who I am to You." I think it applies here.
"You're lucky" Dr Well said. I believe we make our own luck. Jennifer, you've done the work. That's choice and effort, not luck. Thanks for a lovely piece.
8
"Selfie" = self-indulgent. This incessant need to be quenched is a destructive waste of time. 'Home movies" taken by a parent could chronicle a family's happy moments. Your life is far better off with little time to look in the mirror except to get ready in the morning or prepare for your big date. I think I'd like your grandmother!
28
Meditating in the mirror does seem like a useful style of inquiry but I may wait for a good hair day (note: I'm bald). Thanks, Ms. Boylan, for a heartfelt piece.
16
That is the good side of the online world I suppose - we can be heard for what we say rather than shackled to how we look and the assumptions that go with it.
7
What a beautifully humanistic piece. The "realistic" part of me thinks that image will always rule over substance in human consciousness, but if maybe we have a bit more of this, perhaps that could be influenced.
Nice Beatles reference at the end too :-)
40
There are a lot of young people growing up communicating with people who's identities are obscured. They often get to know the inside of a person long before they ever see the outside.
Maybe they will learn the lesson about books and their covers on a deeper level than we did.
I basically agree with the other op-ed writer today that the "generation" you are born in does not determine much about your individual personality.
But I also subscribe (hopefully out of more than just wishful thinking) to the idea that human society is still evolving, both through DNA, and societal habits, and that we are heading toward more honesty, trust, goodwill, sharing, mutual respect, mutual aid, and democracy in the future. (Despite current setbacks)
It is one of few beliefs I allow myself.
You may say that I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one.
I hope some day you will join us,
And the world will be as One.
Another world is coming.
3