Throughout his life Rembrandt painted many self portraits of himself. In fact, it could be argued, that he was one of his favorite subjects. Many artists paint self portraits. Often, in art school, it is an early assignment in the syllabus. For self-portraiture is not just the recording of one’s image onto a canvas, but the result of intense self-scrutiny and examination, and as such, is a process fraught with both pain and frustration. To look at oneself in a mirror can be at times, as disturbing as it is revealing. But it ever reminds me of the maxim inscribed at the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Know Thyself.

In some ways, all works are self portraits, either in part or whole, of the creator behind them. We may think we hide behind abstract phrases and long winded discourses firmly rooted in science. But each word, nay, each punctuation mark, betrays us. By our very choices are we defined with what words did we choose, and why. Where did we begin, and where did we choose, or at the very least, felt compelled, to stop? All this minutiae are fragments of the greater mirror of our souls, and we should be just as eager to turn our gaze inwards through these portals.

We all share a great mystery and that mystery is ourselves. Our interiors are every bit and vast as the universe at large around us. That is because we only comprehend the universe through the limited filter of our physical body. The universe we see is us, for all intents and purposes, for it is colored and shaded through the filter of our minds, which can be an arbitrary conglomeration of neural settings set hodge-podge by the circumstance of one’s health, body or environment. This conglomeration need not be arbitrary or random. With much effort it can be deliberate and artificial as the mechanical birds set to sing in jeweled gardens at the Topkapi Palace during the Ottoman Empire. This artifice, acquired through great pains and skills, serve merely to reveal, again, the hidden machinations of the self. The creation of such a thing could only be acquired through the same examination of oneself.

A self-portrait is never something so simple as taking one’s photo in the mirror (although, at the same time, sometimes it is.) What lies at the root of that choice? Why a photo at all? Why not a watercolor? And what mirror did you choose to look at? Is it gilt with rococo whiplash lines, or practically invisible, like the still water on an infinity pool?

In the manifestations of group minds such as cultures and religions, it is the differences that spark my imagination. That is the source of my discomfort with Perennialism and its reduction of human beliefs to interchangeable components, as though religions consisted of Lego blocks of belief.

As I already assume individuals to be just that – individual, it is the similarities that spark my interest. A truly flawless diamond may be utterly unique and one of a kind, but it will only refract light in one way, and that pattern can be mapped and predicted ad infinitum. In its perfection, all the spectacular potentials for variation and change are exhausted by the stasis achieved by its flawlessness. The most fascinating gemstones are often flawed. An inclusion will shoot forth a cascade of rainbow light, or set one’s mind reeling into the stone’s depth – an endless interplay of light and shadow are afforded and reflected back within its facets.

From great distances, the stars in the night sky appear inviolate and perfect, like gems caught in the net of the night sky. In their twinkling one can see subtle shades of color. One star may be yellow and the other icy blue. It is only upon close examination that we can see the roiling surfaces of these stars with their seas of energy colliding into one another, creating solar storms and sun spots. Then these stars are not inviolate gems in the night sky, but turbulent sources of change with potential for creation and destruction.

So my LJ is a self-portrait, if you like. I can tell one story of my life in a million different ways and they would all be right and at the same time, they would all be wrong. That same life is appallingly mundane and, at the same time, unlike any other. And when you, my dear readers, gaze upon my words and read the foolish minutiae of my everyday life, you are not looking at me. I am only holding up a very ornate mirror. Whatever you see in my writing, it is yourself you gaze into.