True beauty is something that attacks, overpowers, robs, and finally destroys.
-Yukio Mishima
I don’t think I will be the only blogger to say that blogging has helped with their self confidence. You see, I never saw myself as pretty or beautiful or really attractive, if I’m honest. In fact, it was only in recent years that I became a little more at ease with the way I look. I barely own any photos from when I was a teenager, as I destroyed them – I didn’t like the ugly duckling staring back at me and didn’t recognize myself in them at all.
Since I started blogging on Livejournal back in 2002 or so, and because I had a digital camera, I started experimenting a lot more with photography, particularly self portraits. I started having my photo taken a lot more often as well, as a few years later I started posting the good old outfit photos, which also helped attain some easiness in front of the camera. These days it’s a lot simpler, with the rise of the selfie and the availability of smartphones, that can take better snaps than a lot of proper cameras…
Looking at oneself in a photograph, and having the opportunity to try different angles over and over again, can be considered obsessive or self absorbed. I would say yes, but also argue that if it helps people get over their hangups and feel more beautiful and confident, it can’t be such a bad thing altogether.
Thanks to digital cameras and blogging, I was able to become more self aware as well as able to manipulate and control my own image. It did (and still does) help me in terms of questioning my looks. Who do I want to be (or look like) on a particular day, can be later revisited and analysed, for further development.
I have a somewhat theatrical approach to the way I dress and as such, see it as a creative process. I’ve been doing the same thing for a while now and after some soul searching (been doing a lot of that recently), I have decided I want to take it beyond the daily outfit experience. I want to experiment not only with the clothes I wear to go to work but also invent other more extreme looks, play with makeup and just push the envelope further – question what beauty is, my self image and generally play with my appearance. In a way, be my own canvas.
How about you? Has blogging helped with your self confidence? How do you treat your self-image?
