S itting with the group of journalists I mentioned last time, the observation was made that no-one knows you as well as yourself. I'm sure the profound comments were fuelled by tiredness and a few beers, but it raises some interesting points...

*user pauses for deep thinking mode*

I've been transcribing several recent interviews for upcoming articles and if I didn't already know that was me on the tape, I wouldn't recognise my own voice. The way I hear myself talking aloud 'live' is very much different than the way the playback sounds and, presumably, how others hear me. The words are mine - but the tone seems off. Equally, while taking a self-portrait like the one that you can see top left (if you're reading this on the blogsite itself) it's often easier to take the shot in the mirror, but then I have to remember to reverse it. The shot I originally get is the one I most easily recognise from seeing myself on a daily basis (contrary to popular belief I don't spend all day looking at myself, but , hey, some longful gazing at me is inevitable); the correctly reversed one allows me to see the version of my face that everyone else see, but it looks wrong to me. Again - there's that gap between what I know of me and what others do.

So with such differences, who knows the real me and do I know it any better?  After all, I'm in a prominent minority of one.  And if that's true, do we ever see others the 'right' way? Certainly their view of themselves will differ accordingly.  I think the only real answer is that spending a lot of time around those you care about, you get to know the way they THINK, their personality and how they react to things. It's the reason that people become more attractive the more you get to know them (or the opposite, I suppose) . Those interactions with family, lovers, friends...are the things that probably define the bigger us more than our looks or voice - at least to those who matter. You get an insight into the 'who' of who they are. Equally, through experience, people may sometimes read us better than we read ourselves; subjective or objective, it's always a receipe for good drama. :)

The truth is that there's little you can do to change those physical factors, so you just have to trust in yourself and in the people whose opinions have come to matter and who seem to have our best interest at heart. You can but hope that the person you are and the person people perceive you to be are relatively close... and if in doubt, always go with the most positive version. You can spend too much time in your own head - and my head is a nice place to visit, but time-share is a big commitment.

In other terms... in the words of that great philosopher himself: 'I think therefore I yam what I yam....' 

Everything else is noise.