recursive

Feeling a little down tonight, not sure why...

So have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and not really recognized yourself?

I stared at myself in the mirror for literally ten minutes last night trying for some sort of recognition. Got nothing really. I mean, I look familiar and all, but not really like me. Maybe like an older cousin of me. But not like the me I carry around in my head. He looks younger, and a bit cheerier honestly. The guy in the mirror looked kind of beaten. Like he was tired and ready for bed. It was a little strange. It's funny how you never really know how you look to the world. In more ways then just appearance. You can never really know how your actions and behavior is getting interpreted by the people around you. Even people that you have known for years, you can never really see yourself the way they see you. Then their view is further shaped by the years they have known you, and the knowledge they have of you. All of this is blended together into their total view of you and the rest of the world.

So we wander around, each of us with our own different view of the world and how it works, and try to use this knowledge to understand what is going on around us. We make assumptions, try things out, and see what works and what doesn't about our world view. But we can never really know how other people see the world, or how much of the way we see the world is right. We ultimately can't see through the colored lenses of ourselves to see the truth. So we stumble on, trying to formulate a vision of the world that is as true as possible. But essentially alone, since you are really the only person that sees the world the way you do.