Video by lindsiannshi

I have always been scared of being perceived because there's a primal terror in being seen, truly seen, in being laid bare before the judgment of others. The moment we exist in someone else's mind, we surrender our narrative to interpretations we can't control. All of our layers, complexities, contradictions can be collapsed down into a single moment, a single

instance, a single trait, something small that ends up defining us forever in someone else's eyes. This was the opening of a sub-sec article I read recently that really hit on the fear perception. It explored how carefully we curate our identities, how painstakingly we choose our words, actions, phrases, believing we can shape how others understand us.

But the tragedy of perception is that it never fully belongs to us. No matter how meticulously we present ourselves, people see us through their own fears, biases, and experiences. Anais Ninh said it best, We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are. We live in the space between who we believe ourselves to be and who others perceive us as.

It's a strange tension. Wanting desperately to be understood, but also wanting to curate the exact terms on which that understanding happens. Because there's something painful about being misunderstood. It really makes you wonder, if no one sees us as the way we see ourselves, then who are we really? But perhaps the greatest act of self-preservation is to relinquish the need to control perception.

To accept that we will be misunderstood. That our image will be refracted a thousand different ways in a thousand different minds. And none of them will ever be entirely accurate. To be human is to be misperceived. To be human is to exist as a multiplicity. an ever-shifting reflection in the eyes of others.