Who you think I am

I suffered a recent (probably minor) public humiliation – which is haunting me, like the card-carrying perfectionist neurotic that I am

In a trawl of the internet and psych resources, I came across this quote which no one can quite attribute..

“I’m not who I think I am. Nor am I who you think I am. But I am who I think you think I am”

This rings a bell as it repeats themes from things I’ve read and studied before such as Huis Clos from whence came the phrase “l’enfer, c’est les autres”… generally poorly translated into English as “hell is other people” which shows the limitations of the English language. What Sartre actually meant is that hell is how we perceive ourselves through others, and everything that we project onto them and consequently, back onto ourselves.

We spend so much time creating a mythical version of ourselves for others, hoping to influence the way that they perceive us; create a version of ourselves in their eyes that we can tolerate, that when we fail to maintain that illusion through some self-failing (often in public) it brings everything crashing down.

Me. Seeing you. Seeing me. I can’t think of anything worse.

I’ve realised that that’s the thread running through everything I draw; the self, the other and everything that happens between the two.