Self Image Industry Ghosts

In many ghost stories you have to stand in front of a mirror and start chanting stuff in order for spooky whomever/whatever to appear. Ever wondered why? It's because seing a freaking ghost is the easy way to imply that coming face to face with how you perceive yourself through a link between the conscious and the unconscious (mirror) may make you become directly aware of certain truths about yourself. The whole idea of looking into the mirror and seeing something spine-chilling is the blunt projection of perceptive versus actual self. The mere realization that what you think of yourself (=what you think you want to be/what others have convinced you you are) is in fact very different from what you really are (=really want to be) adds the creepy factor. When weird shit related to mirrors happens, you don't get to see naked fairies. You get to see ugly, dead motherfuckers. When you start realizing you have been misinterpreting your own motives because of what you constantly are taught to look up to, you get to have the spectacular epiphany that ugly, alive motherfuckers you can't even name run your life.
Unless one lives under a stone, they must have internalized the global codex of what is appealing and what isn't long before reaching adulthood ( which means that the "individual's" perception of past, present and future selves depends on external stimuli). Actually, the whole idea of what the self is/should be depends on external stimuli. In reality the value of any claim is determined by the community in which it is uttered. For those of us who live in the ambitious white world that means we are walking self-conflicts since we lose sleep over bills, yet believe that the meaning of life probably has to do with something deeply philosophical and polysyllabic, have plans, but don't have goals (or vice versa), "know" that "outer beauty is only skin deep, but inner beauty is to the bone", yet count calories.
This is all very nice et cetera, but it sounds like philosophical blah. So I'll be more specific about the multiple personality syndrome we all have to a degree:

• If there was any chance I would get laid -despite having short hair- sometime in this millenia, I would definitely have a different haircut.
• If wearing glasses wouldn't immediately cry "fuglineeeess"/ "geeekiness", I wouldn't walk around with silicone-hydrogel stuck on my eyeballs.
• If I wasn't morally obliged due to my sex and age to fit into tight, suffocating death jeans I would eat SHITLOADS of sweets.
• If I weren't supposed to smile politely in all sorts of situations basically (you wait in line forever and then an elderly person appears: you smile and offer your place/you smile and don't offer your place; your parents give you a lecture on why you are such a failure in life: you smile and ask what's for dinner; you realise your socks don't match on the most important day of your life (job interview/date etc.) : you smile and pretend it's a fashion statement; you're watching T.V. and the commercials are that many that you have forgotten what you were watching in the first place: you smile cause your brain is fried anyway; you walk alone in the middle of nowhere at 5AM and are attacked by wannabe rapists: you smile and pull out your Beretta 391 semi-automatic shotgun (everyone knows ANYTHING can fit in a girl's bag), I would eat shitloads of sweets AND wouldn't worry about my teeth rotting.
• If I didn't care about successful socializing I would admit I don't like jazz enough to actually be able to name a Louis Armstrong song.
• If I wasn't raised to believe money is something like god -except you can buy things with it-, I would pursue a career in something artistic.
• For the same reason, I wouldn't mind being a starved artist.
• But since I am taught I have to succeed at all costs, I would actually mind being a starved artist.

The conclusion: whether we like it or not, we are passively shaped on many levels. Our rebellious acts are nothing more than reacting to what we already are in the path of becoming; nothing more than whatever original part there is left in us backfiring and ruining our chances of a carefree "normal" life. If you end up being a perfect, socially accepted "individual" you'll always have some "disturbing" moments you wished you were more like Marilyn Manson/ Lady Gaga. And even if you do end up like them, you'll have to go to the supermarket and pick the kids up from school eventually.

Ghosts have no corporal form. Even as disembodied spirits though they maintain an appearance because they have a certain image of themselves...

What is your image of yourself? and how unrelated to the social norms is it?...

Ghosts may or may not know they are dead.

Can you tell how alive your original, not-bullshit-abiding self is?

......

BOO!

Self Image Industry Ghosts by The Schismarch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Greece License.