A Photographic View Of Emotional
Perceptions
They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that is very true when you actually think about it.
When you are happy, and everything is going well in your life, when you feel free and relaxed you can look in the mirror and say to yourself "Damn, I look good!" with no problem at all. Heck, there could be times where you are so happy that you look in the mirror repeatedly just so you can look into your own eyes and see that what is going on is real and that you aren't dreaming.
Funny how the wrinkles fade and the grey hairs you just don't see are still there when you are happy. Funnier yet is how when the people you are around see the contentment and happiness they don't notice them either. Our concept of reality is based on the emotions we color it with, and to me it's amazing that the human mind can affect such a change to something as simple as our own vision. I've often wondered if happiness and the chemicals the body releases while you are happy has it's own way of making this happen, the happy chemicals perhaps blocking certain receptors in the brain and so on, creating the effect of one having the proverbial "Rose Colored Glasses".
But when things change (as they often do) and your mood becomes dark and depressed your vision changes. Not only to you yourself but how others view you as well. For instance in the beginning of what may be a tragic period in your life for whatever reason, you will for a time look perhaps something like this.
Pale and wan, nothing to talk about because what you are carrying inside you is so big and painful you are scared. Scared to open your mouth because you don't know what is going to some out of it, laughter or tears, and neither of them will be of the healthy kind.
People will try to comfort you, and you thank them but everyone knows that if you can't make it past this and the worst will surely not be this 'pretty'. Again, the human mind coloring what it sees and expects to see in the future. The image becoming not perhaps what it truly is, but what you perceive it to be.
Exhaustion from your brain refusing to shut down begins to wear on you, as does the stress and you can't bear to look into the mirror hardly at all now, you only use it in a vain attempt to get others to see you differently and see that you are 'fine' and 'ok'. But you aren't, and it shows to the people around you, their worry or glee at your misfortune lends them the eyes to see where you are cracking and quite frankly the chemicals are telling them you don't look so good.
Then the anger sets in.
To be quite honest no one wants to see this face either, even though your anger may well be justified. But it's frightening, for quite often when you are angry those close to you are not drawn to this sort of expression from you, the bodies natural instinct to anger is to back away from it as you never know if it will turn on you. The body gives off that lovely 'stay away' chemical and whether intended or not people look at you and have the desire to keep themselves at a distance. Self preservation changing how you and the world at large see you isn't something that any of us can deny.
Then , perhaps you crack. The anger and pain are too much weight for you to carry and for a time you cease to care.
Soul wounded and blank, a piece of the story that no one wants to write, no one can change but you. They can see that you have lost something, a part of yourself that no one is certain you will get back. You can't even see what used to be for yourself, within your own self and so what everyone now views is this feeling of 'nothingness' that exists within you.
Hopefully one doesn't get locked in this stage, I can't see anyone liking this perception of themselves for very long. So once again we change, ourselves and others perceptions as well.
When grief and pain have run their course somehow everything is washed, if not clean then stripped of almost everything that colored the eyes before. What remains is a palate just waiting to become colored once again. You can look in the mirror once more, washed out but with just that little bit of hope inside of you that colors peoples view and you find them looking at you once more with tentative smiles. They once again are developing much friendlier eyes with which to look upon you, mother natures chemical reacting to what you are presenting to the world.
The image of your happiness once more reflected in the mirror and in those around you, changed and yet somehow timeless once more.
Every event in your life colors the palate of who you are thought to be. It's not completely in your control, no, nothing ever is. Never doubt however that what you are feeling on the inside isn't seen in the people around you, and you certainly can't hide it from yourself.
