our undulating selves

Following a conversation with Rosa a year ago:

Tonight we talked about diaries, and she made a point about self-conscious writing which we of course have all experienced. But she said that as a young person, to keep a diary, a real record, is very brave because one is always aware of the possibility that it could be read and self-conscious and circumspect as a result.

We're never really ourselves when we cast our identity into permanence. I think partly at least, the inauthenticity of the permanent impression is a result of how fluid our personalities are, our undulating selves. We can never perfectly capture the confluence of selves that arrive at one moment because that moment is bleeding into another with its own set of selves and being bled into by yet another. Like how I always feel uglier in photographs, my face requiring animation to be explained.

Wallpaper by Gia Coppola (remember this?)