Me in the Mirror

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me?

You're right, it's not me. But I look better.

OK. And I'm sure there's something about me that's wrong.

Well, it's easy to see why. You're tall, you're handsome, you were an actor on Broadway, you're a professor at Yale.

You're a professor at Yale.

Really?

That's the name.

What do you teach at Yale?

I teach the History of Modern Philosophy, which is called Philosophy in Universities. I've taught it for fifty years.

How did you become a professor?

I was a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the early nineteen-sixties.

Really?

The path to that was not smooth.

What it was, though, was that I learned how to write. I went to a literary college in England called the University of London.

What did you study there?

Some French.

What did you do there?

I was asked to write a short story about a young man who was a traveler in France. I wrote the story, and it set off a series of short stories. There was an exhibition there called the Fabulous Parisian, and I was invited to make a short film.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me?

The alternative I find myself in is a balance. I don't help myself with money. I'm not really interested in things as I see them. I'd rather go out and buy things for myself.

Then there are the things that I'd like to do, but I can't because I'm too busy trying to find my way. I don't want to be out, I don't want to be out, but I'm afraid to take my chances. Maybe it's something to do with social darkness.

One night a week I go out to find out what's going on, and I've got lots of friends, a lot of whom are really interested in the subject.

I find myself very much in the business of trying to persuade myself that I'm really an individual, and I still am for the most part.

But about once in a while I catch wind of something interesting that seemed to me a little bit odd.

I got a letter from a man who was in a very poor state of health, and I had a letter from him which he had written after our last meeting. It was a letter that he had written after he had separated from me.

I remember it well.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me?

Once I've seen the gaze of many a woman on my face, it's easy to remember that I'm a man. But not always.

I am a man, but I often feel guilty about it. I know that if I ever really got a chance to see a woman, I would have done it for myself.

I used to suspect that I was the only man in the world to take the time to admire his own reflection. But, as I have come to learn, that's not always true.

I always have a suspicion that I am a man who is actually rather of a woman, but only for a little while. At first I thought it was because of a very fragile ego. When I look at myself in the mirror, it is not so much from a literary point of view that I am a man, but from a physical one. I think that the straight-up nakedness of my body suggests to me that I am rather a woman. But when I have a good look at myself, I find that I am much less of a man. I am more of a woman than I am of a man. I know that there are many men who do not admire themselves so much as they admire the reflection of their own shadows.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? I can't tell. And yet, I find myself attracted to it.

This is why I love my job, why I want to become more like it, why I still go to the bar every night to have a drink with friends, why I live this way. It is a life I've lived for many years, and it is the reason I have trouble seeing myself. When I look in the mirror I see myself, but I know from my own experience that I am most at home at work.

When I was seven years old I saw a movie called "Married to the Mob," which is about a family that makes a trip to New York City. It turned out that my father was a mobster, and we were married. I have never known him to wear a job suit.

I began by reading "Married to the Mob." And then later, when I was twenty-five, I went to see the movie "The Jew," which was directed by Walter Salles. I had always hoped that I would someday have the opportunity to make a film like that. At that point I had just finished two movies that were at the height of their brilliance.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me?

I've spent some time in the warm sun and the dark, dimly lit houses of the working class.

I have friends who are poor and those who are rich. I often talk to them about their own lives. They are often poor, but their lives are better than mine. The old men have been widows; the young men have been widows. Some of them have been widows for thirty years, but they are still living. Many of them have married and been widows for a long time.

I have seen the poor and the rich. The poor have all had to work harder than the rich. They have no money but their clothes and their shoes. The poor have no money but their clothes and their shoes.

I have seen the poor and the rich. The poor have all had to work harder than the rich. They have no money but their clothes and their shoes. The poor have no money but their clothes and their shoes.

I've seen the poor and the rich. The poor have all had to work harder than the rich. They have no money but their clothes and their shoes. The poor have no money but their clothes and their shoes.

I have seen the poor and the rich. The poor have all had to work harder than the rich. They have no money but their clothes and their shoes. The poor have no money but their clothes and their shoes.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? Why do I see myself as a man?

In public, I'm the kind of person who seems to have no sense of his own body. I wish to be a beautiful woman in a dress. I wish to be an attractive man in a suit. I wish to be a handsome woman with flowers in her hair. But I have no sense of my own body. I have no sense of my own mind. I am not what I see myself to be.

Then there is the head. I am quite convinced that the head is the most important organ of the body—and I know it, myself.

When I look at myself, it is not with the same eye that the eyes see, which is not always a good thing. There is a restlessness in my eyes; they look out of the depth of my soul, and sometimes I see the reflection of the sun on my face. I come to the conclusion that the head is in some sense a mirror. It is a sickly mirror, which makes the eyes look like their own—as if they were mirrors, and the eyes like their own, and the body like its own.

It is easy to see my own reflection in it. The eyes are crooked. The nose is hollow. The mouth is crooked. The cheeks are crooked. The lips are crooked, and the teeth are crooked. The hand is crooked. The fingers are crooked. The eyebrows are crooked.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? If I am, why do I look so different?

I am, although I don't know why. The surface of my face is an occasional white blot that has become a mask over my features. I squeeze most of the excess light from my eyes to try to preserve my reflection, and I am always trying to look as close as possible to my mother, who is standing a few yards away in her dressing gown.

I am not quite sure that I am.

The mirror is about my waist, and I touch my nose with my thumb. I try to look as close as I can, but I can't quite get away from the pictures of myself on the mirror.

Much of what I am seeing is reflection from a mirror, but I will try to show you at a glance how it works.

I have been a mirror since childhood. I used to have a mirror behind my desk in the living room. I used to take it out to take a picture. Then, when I was a boy, I got a mirror for the porch of my house, and I took it out to take a picture of the yard. I got a mirror in my bedroom, and I took it out on the porch to take a picture of the yard.

I have had mirrors of a more complicated nature, but I never had a mirror that was worse than mine.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me?

I've never been so aware of my own own reflection. I'm reminded of it often, particularly when I walk down the streets and see a man dressed in a dress shirt and tie who seems to have been drawn to the shade of a dead tree. He wears a dark brown jacket and brown pants, and his hair is held back with a white scarf. He looks at me with a sort of sad, sad, sad stare. "I can't make out your face," he says, "but I can see it in your eyes."

I take a deep breath, and look him square in the eye. "What's your name?"

"Peter Behlke."

"What's the matter with you?"

"And what about this?"

"You look a sight to be reckoned with."

"Yes," I say, "I am Peter Behlke."

"All right, Peter," he says, "we're a match made in heaven."

"I'm glad to see you," I say, "and I hope you'll see that I'm a strong believer in heaven."

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? I'm not sure.

But maybe it's easier to look at myself in the mirror while I'm typing my thoughts than when I'm doing it.

I've laughed and cried at the same time while writing this post. It's easy to laugh when you read a letter that you've written in a book. It's easy to cry when you're watching a movie you've seen a million times. But sometimes you can't allow yourself to laugh, and you can't let yourself cry, and you're compelled to write.

When I look at myself in a mirror, I see myself in all its beauty. I see myself in the smiles and the laughter and the light and the colors and the way my eyes look.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen myself reflected in a mirror.

First of all, it was sort of a relief. It was so much easier to be honest with myself in a mirror. And it made me realise that I was not the Man I was after all.

I didn't really know myself when I was writing this. But I did know that I was not the man I was after all.

I was afraid to admit that I was not the man I was after all.

I was afraid of being seen, to be liked, to be liked by others.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? Is it really my face? Or has it been painted by someone else? What am I supposed to make of it all? I would rather be a victim than a perpetrator. And if I was a victim, every one of my victims would be a policeman.

My wife is a police officer. She lives in a suburb of London. She has a small garden, and she keeps a framed photograph of a small boy who looked at the water in his bathtub. I think of it often and think of him often.

I have been married for twenty-five years, but I have never lived in a police station. I never met a policeman who was not a friend. I have never been asked to come to a police station. But I always carry my pistol in my pocket. I hold it with both hands, ready to shoot let no one come in sight.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me?

I have to admit that when I first saw the picture I thought it looked a bit like me. I was standing in front of my mirror, with my eyes shut and my hair down in a bun, staring at myself. I was breathing heavily, sweaty, and his eyes were sparkling with excitement.

It was one of those pictures of me I have looked at thousands of times. It was the picture of a young, handsome man with his eyes open, his mouth hanging wide open, and a grin on his slender face. He was wearing a dark suit, with a shirt that fell to the knees and a pair of slacks that hung down below his knees. His hair was parted so that his forehead was just barely visible to the left. His face was lined with wrinkles, and his eyes were burning with lust.

The picture, though, was far from done. I stared at myself in the mirror for longer than I care to admit. The man was not a handsome man, but I knew him as a fierce competitor and an opponent. He told me that he had fought the most vicious fight of his life in a single Saturday night in the middle of the street.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? Is it possible to exist without reflecting? What about when I return to my home, to my work, to my family? How can I live without half my face or half my nerves? What about the passing in front of a mirror?

My work is preparing for my own death. I've had enough of the mirrors. I've seen enough of my life. I am ready to give up all this to be alone. It's impossible to be anything but who I am. What is it then that I want? I do not want to be here. I do not want to be anywhere.

Some things seem to me more necessary than others. I have a little winter coat, and I have a little bed. I think about the house where I live. I think about the house where I grew up. I think about the house where my father used to live. I think about the house where I live now.

And I think about myself.

I look at myself every night. I think about myself, and I think about the things that are going on around me. I think about my brothers and sisters, my friends, the people who come and go with me. My thoughts are always the same. I am nothing to myself but what I see out of the mirror. Nobody else may see me. I am alone. I am my own mirror, and I must not be afraid to be my own mirror.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? I felt a strange sense of relief this morning when I realized that I had finally found a man who had not forgotten me.

I was a little surprised to find him, though. I had never been that kind of man. I am always in the position of trying to find out what I am, how I am, by looking at myself. I thought I might have had some idea of myself when I had seen him, but I had no idea of what he looked like. I looked at him with my usual shrewdness, and I knew that he was a man who had walked through the court and out the door and stood waiting at the gate for a moment or two. He was a man who had used to slip into the thick of a crowd and then leave it, and then come out again and speak to his friends. He was a very good-looking man, but even he looked at me with dread. He was a man of an old style, but he did not look the age of my father, and he was not a man of the old style. He looked like a man of the modern style. He had the most handsome physical features, and he was very tall and thin, and I became certain that he was quite a man of his time.

I saw him once in the Hall of Justice, when he was a prisoner, and I remember with pleasure how he looked at me with an expression of curious interest.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? I'm a creature of habit. I can't help but look at myself in the mirror: my skin is brown, my hair is gray, my eyes are thin, my cheeks are sunken, my nose is flat, my lips are broad as a stick.

But this is not me, it is not me at all. I have come to see myself as I am. I have come to see myself as I am, and I am never going to change what I see in myself.

The mirror doesn't help me. It does nothing for me. And yet it has been my friend.

I have been looking at myself in the mirror for years. I have lived with it ever since I was a child, when I could just see through it. I have known about it all my life, and it has served me every time I have been in the position to look at myself.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? I'm not quite sure.

One day, I saw a girl in a long skirt and heels, a red dress, and a white veil over her eyes. She was so beautiful that I felt like I was on some kind of voyeuristic voyage. I stared at her and smiled at her.

"I am you," she said. "I am you."

"I am you," I said, "and I am you."

"Aye," she said. "I am you too."

I walked up to her and kissed her.

"I am you," she said, "and I am you too."

"Aye," I said, "and I am you too."

"Aye," she said, "and I am you too."

At last I said to myself, "This is the way it's going to be."

I was in my hotel room, and the whole time I was looking at myself in the mirror.

"Look at yourself," I said. "You are beautiful."

"You are beautiful, all right," she said. "But you're a little pale, and it's got to be done."

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me?

The answer has long been obvious for those who have studied the subject. It is a question of perspective. If you look at yourself in the mirror and think, "I am not my body," you will perceive yourself more or less the same as you are, but you will certainly perceive yourself as different from yourself. You might even perceive yourself as a different person than you are.

If you look at yourself in the mirror and think, "I am my body," you will perceive yourself more or less the same as you are, but you will certainly perceive yourself as different from yourself. You might even perceive yourself as a different person than you are.

I think I'm a different person than I am.

When I look in the mirror, I think, "I am not my body." I think about my wife at work, and I think about the animals I feed. I think about my children, and I think about my wife's children, and I think about my wife's children, and every other creature of this earth, that I can think of.

I don't know that I am a different person than I am. In some cases I am, in others I am not.

What is it that makes me different? What is it that gives me a sense of my being different from other men?

It is the fact that I have been taught to regard the body as the center of my mind.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me?

I have always been interested in this question. I have always had a penchant for looking at my own reflection. The first time I ever took a look at myself was in my mother's kitchen, back in the early 1950s. She had a box of mirrors in her room. She had them all in the window. The windows were off the side, and they looked like a mirror. I remember thinking she was trying to be strange.

I always read this book: "The Mirror Mirror is a Trojan Horse." I was at the time a student in a French university, and I had been studying philosophy for ten years. It was only recently that I had consciously come to realize that the mirror was a Trojan horse for the mind. It opened my eyes to the truth of what I was seeing and to the purpose of my own life.

As I grew older and more experienced, I became more convinced that the mirror was the mirror. The mirror was like a mirror where you look at yourself as you really are. You see yourself as you really are.

And then there is the mirror in the front window.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? Is that who I really am? Is that who I think I am? Or is it my lie?

As I stood behind the mirror, I had an inkling that I was an alter ego.

Well, I wouldn't say that I was a fool, but I didn't know who I really was, and I knew who I thought I was. And then one day when I was driving down the road, I saw a bright light in the rearview mirror.

I saw my reflections in them. I was curious to see who they were. It was a little behind me in the car. I had a clear view of the road ahead.

I walked over and saw the driver of the car, my companion. He was sitting in the passenger seat sitting completely naked.

"Are you OK?" he asked.

"I guess so," I said. "Could you have a seat?"

"I don't want to be in the seat," he said. "I don't like it. It's just too early."

"I'll have it," I said. "I'm ready to go."

The light faded away from the rearview mirror.

I was just sitting there, staring at the mirror. The light was still kind, but it was fading farther away.

"I want to go," I said. "I want to go to hell."

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? Are I really as attractive as you think? Try to answer these questions without the fear of losing your self-respect. It will make you happy to know that you're not the only one who thinks like you.

My wife was a student of my life in college when I was a great man. She was a loving person with a strong will. She was a poor student and took a great deal of interest in my wife. She knew something about me that I did not. I would gladly have left my wife had she not refused me. On the other hand, I like her and she liked me. She thought it was my duty as an educator to attempt to make our marriage work. I am sorry to say that my self-respect prevailed over my love of my wife and I do not blame her for her refusal.

I am aware that in many ways my wife is a good woman. But I find it hard to live with her when I realize that she is a woman whom I have never married.

I think of her when I think of myself. I think of her when I think of my children. I know not what I want to do with her, but I am sure that she would have been happy to have me with her, and I think it would be her last wish that I should live in San Francisco.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? It doesn't matter. I am a product of the world. And I'm born there.

At Christmas, I took my daughter out for a walk on the pier, and the two of us passed two men looking at each other. One was a young man with a brown beard, who had a knife in his hand. He held it up as if to strike me. "You look a lot like his father," he said. "I'll cut you up, as you will cut him up."

"I'm afraid I've got you," I said. "I'm not much of a man."

"You'll be my wife," said the man. "You'll be my friend."

"I'll be your son," said the man with the knife. "I'll be your brother."

"We'll be your brothers," said the man with the knife. "I'll be your best friend."

"The young man needs a friend, for he's so young, and you're so young."

"I borrowed him from you," I said. "I'll see if I can get him a job."

"I'll be your best friend," said the man with the knife. "I'll be your brother-in-law."

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? I think I would prefer to be myself, in my true self, but I don't think I'm no longer myself.

What if the two sets of eyes are not the same but rather different?

Can't you see that the two sets of eyes are different?

One of them is a straight, white-featured man with a tan beard, and the other is a black-haired, dark-skinned man with a mustache. It's a strange pair of eyes.

What's the difference?

You see, it's the same old thing. Think of it as a mirror. One eye is a straight-eyed man, the other is a black-haired, dark-skinned man.

How did you get a grip on your beliefs?

I was a believer in the Communist Party of the United States, and I believed that it was for the good that our society was divided into free and slave classes. I think that's what I took away from it. I mean, if you see these two people in the mirror, you can go and see them if you wish, but the fact remains that society is divided up into free and slave classes.

Your own personal life seemed to me to be a little more complicated. You spent most of your time in the mountains and the desert.

Yes, in that sense.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? Are my legs really normal? Or am I a different person?

When I visited my clinic in Johannesburg, I was given a new face, a new nose, a new mouth, a new tongue, and a brand-new face. I found it strange to see myself as a human being. Even I had grown up in the United States. I had to look at myself in the mirror, as I did every morning. I stared blankly at my face in the mirror.

I was talking to Dr. Stefan F. Thumberg when he told me that my outward appearance had been completed. He said that I had become a man, a well-made man, in spite of my long absence in America. It took me a year to get myself out of that memory. I had never been in the street before.

One of my old friends, who was also a surgeon, had passed away about the year before. He had died of cancer, and my father had never been able to take care of him. He had lived a long time on his own, but his body had become too weak to take care of himself.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? Do I look good in my dress, too?

It is not just women who are drawn to these mirror-to-self techniques, but everyone.

I'm not the only one. I've had it myself, and there are thousands of people who use it to their advantage.

The object is to seem more confident and attractive in front of people, to understand the psychology of others, and to succeed at attracting their attention.

The mirror-to-self technique is not only used by women, but it has become a popular tool in many other areas.

It is very effective. It is very easy to use it and very effective in attracting attention.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? How am I supposed to know what I look like?

But I am looking at myself. I am looking at my own reflection, and I am happy to see that it is not me in it. It is not me in my shoes. It is not me in my clothes. It is me in my shadow, and the shadow in me is seen by me, and I am conscious of it. It is me in my eyes, and the eyes in me are seen by me, and I am conscious of it.

That is my great mirror, my great mirror in which I see myself, and it is my mirror in which I see myself: it is my great mirror in which I see myself, and I know it.

I have a great love for my mirror, and I wish to get rid of it, and I wish to see it torn down, and I have made this prayer: "Lord, if Thou wouldest tear down the mirror from my face, I will tear it from my back, and I will tear it from my neck."

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? I can't help but watch myself blot out a blot of myself in the mirror. But I am always aware that I am not as I was before. That is the power of a mirror: it makes you see yourself as you really are. Many people can't see their own faces in a mirror. It takes them a long time to learn to look at themselves in the mirror. But after a few years they begin to perceive that their faces are as they are, and that the things they experience are the things they did before.

In the woods I used to walk in as a child, and I'm sure it was a beautiful place. But as I grew older, I noticed in my reflection something that was very remarkable: my hair was a dull black, dark as death, like the grey of the blood. It had a sleepy look. I did not look back at it as I walked.

I would now go out in my bedroom and smile, the way a man does when he is smiling, at my reflection in the mirror. "Oh, my dear, I am a little afraid of that kind of reflection in the mirror, sir."

"That is why I was so determined to see my face in it, sir," I answered, with a smile.

"A little, sir. But I don't think it was very necessary in order to show you, sir, that I was a man, sir."

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me?

I am not a believer in these questions, but I think most people who do not believe in them are not conscious of it. Certainly they are conscious of the hyper-stereotyping that is developed in psychology. Some of us are aware of it. But we may not consciously know it. I have something to say about it, but I don't mean to be a debater.

If, for instance, I wondered whether my skin was fair and thin, and whether I had any cramp or even pain. Had I ever been smaller than I am now? Had I ever been smaller than I am now?

I mean to say, have I ever been shorter than I am now? I suppose not. I suppose that the physical sense is often vague and that even the perception of others seems to be mixed up with my own. And it was in this way that I felt myself before the psychiatrists.

It is not, however, a question of the physical and psychological: I mean to say that I have always felt myself short. I suppose that I was always short.

I would never have guessed that I would have been shorter than I am now, but I would have guessed that I would have felt myself shorter.

And yet, perhaps, the very man who sees me and thinks I am short is always satisfied with my present height.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me?

Why am I so ashamed?

I don't know why.

Then we have a very strange case of the mirror.

The mirror is an old German house, in the suburbs of Berlin. Two men live here, one is Mr. Hitler and the other, Baron Karl Weizmann. They have one daughter, who is very much attached to her father.

They are both very devoted to their family, and they've been married for seventeen years. They have three grown-up children.

I'm sure that they have never seen their daughters in public.

No, I believe that they have not seen their daughters for many years.

What has changed?

I believe that they had passed over the veil for some years.

What has changed?

They have ceased to wear their traditional hats.

I believe that they have never been able to indulge in any sort of intellectual activity.

What has changed?

I hope that they have no intention of ever taking up any of the hobbies that they have hitherto indulged in.

Do you consider yourself a Christian?

What I mean is that I believe that it is proper for men to be concerned with their own souls, and I am not a Christian.

You are a Christian?

Yes.

How do you know it? I am another type of personality.

Almost every time I pass in front of a mirror I take a glance at myself. I'm often dissatisfied with what I see there. Is that really me? Is it me who is wasting my time? The answer is yes, I am. I have not really found myself, and I have not found the right way of living myself. I am, as I have often said, a man who has no aim but to live.

That seems to be the true nature of things. The man who spends his life in the pursuit of happiness is not a fool, and it is to him that I give this warning.

If a man knows his own worth better than he knows it, he will not be ashamed of his desire to obtain it.

Be wise enough to take the show of happiness for the sole business of life, not to make it your pursuit.

Most of the men who give me a trouble in this business are men who have been mistaken in their own eyes as to their own worth. They have become so accustomed to the way things are done in their society that they do not know that they own nothing. They are not especially patient with their friends, and they have had enough of the social world.