How do I look?
Full transcript available at the bottom of this page.
We have a problem.
It’s a preoccupation with looking good—as in, being the recipient of celebratory attention and praise; and I don’t think “worship” would be hyperbole here. We are hyper-fixated on being perceived as X, Y, and Z; obsessed with appearing as this or that.
How many of us pour our energy into performing our lives and activities in a certain way, so as to gain the imagined, or very real, affirmation and celebration from others?
You will not hear me call this a waste, though I’ll say more about this another time.
I am going to say: there’s too much “lookie, lookie, look at me.” Too much emphasis on “How do I look” where “I” is the object, and not enough consideration of how “I,” as the subject, look.
Try this translation of “how do I look?”: “am I seeing truthfully, do I ‘look’–at others, events, things–graciously, generously?”
Let’s have more conversations around, or about, the quality of attention by which or through we take in information. How do we begin?
“Am I seeing truthfully, do I ‘look’ generously?”
What words can be used to describe the quality of one’s gaze? Here are several to get you started on your own investigation:
Flippant
Judging
Gracious
Inquisitive
What other qualities do you notice? What else do you discover in yourself? With whom (*pinkies up*) can you discuss and share this question?
How do you look?
— yours truly,
video transcript
Hi!
First ever Vlog.
How do I look?
How do I look–not asking as in “object,” but as a subject. “How do I look?”
So often we are consumed with how we will appear, how we will be perceived, or even in wanting to be perceived or appear a certain way. And yet when we focus on those things, we often block our own energy, our own life, from unfolding naturally in being, or existing in a certain way that we hope to achieve.
So, rather than being consumed with “how do I appear?” you can shift into, “how am I looking” and even as subtle as that is, asking yourself “how am I looking at myself in this moment?” can give you a completely new pathway to flow into, where you can start to explore, you can play. You can investigate in a way that is supportive rather than dominating, and those kinds of opportunities are the gifts that you give yourself and others in a moment when there might be a lot of pressure.
So, what do you think–how do you look?