Had my intention been to seek the world’s favour, I should surely have adorned myself with borrowed beauties: I desire therein to be viewed as I appear in mine own genuine, simple, and ordinary manner, without study and artifice: for it is myself I paint.

Excerpt From
Michel de Montaigne (1532 – 1592),
“The Essays of Montaigne — Complete”

The self-portrait sounds at first to be a healthy ambition. The modern unpretentious equivalent of, “What you see is what you get!” Yet curiously we seldom have what others might consider an accurate view of ourselves. The ambiguity arises from neither within nor without. Unless you’re criminally disposed, the appearance is unintended; rather it is our unwitting inclination to colour or flavour ourselves for “presentation “. Whether or not one wishes to make a scene, each of us seeks to connect to the wires we call our own. Self-expression doesn’t mean vulgarity; but it certainly means candid. As stubborn as you may be to retain what you may think of as your elemental resources, the ambition is clouded by humanity’s inner sense of compromise. The object is not to distance oneself from others; rather to preserve individuality while subscribing the rules of cooperation and engagement.

Yes, it’s complex.

But first I must question the need to know oneself. The preoccupation is universally reckoned a futile endeavour.  Add to that empirical conclusion the equally accepted proposition that we seldom relate or betray base character. Obfuscation is a challenge at best – even if we consider we’re immune to