Misrepresented

Originally Posted Wednesday, October 29, 2014

It is weird to listen to other people talk about you.  It is even weirder when people write about you.  "What?" you want to say.  "Who the fuck is that?"  It just goes to show the lack of control you have over anything.  If you can't manage to communicate who and what you are, what chance have you at communicating anything at all? 

Apparently, I've fallen in love with italics. 

Photographs lie, too, by the way.  They provoke the same "Who the fuck is that?" reaction.  I wonder if the girl in today's photograph recognizes herself in this picture.  It was so long ago.  I wonder if you notice the slight difference in processing that I have done, too.  I've changed the way I work a bit.  I'm going back through the old stuff and giving the images a slightly different look. 

Just before I stopped taking pictures for the old project, I had a couple of models who didn't like the pictures I sent to them.  I'm sure they were having the same problems with self-presentation as I.  "Who the fuck is that?"  I think the reaction is silly in other people, though.  You are who you are, I want to say.  Get over yourself. 

But I can't get over how even my best allies misrepresent me.  Really?  I am a wonder boy full of sweetness and light. 

Oh, well, I tell myself, get over it.  You've always wanted to be invisible anyway.  Try it.  Just become invisible. 

I used to be.  I could go anywhere and stand next to people and listen to their conversations and even make comments and they never even knew I was there.  It was a remarkable talent I developed.  I would have made a wonderful spy. 

But then I fell in with the wrong crowd.  They were boisterous and showy, and they swayed me.  Suddenly, hubris was a good thing.  Better to be a tragic hero than invisible they seemed to say.

Who knows?  Beowulf might complain, "No, that's not what I meant.  You didn't understand me at all."

Too often, I am forced to think of Willy Loman.  Dreams and visions.  Vanity, vanity, all is. . . .

In the end, though, his was a million dollar idea.