Introspection: an ode to knowing oneself and subsequently confusing other people

My friend, on New Year’s Eve, learned a new word. And before she makes herself uncomfortable with embarrassment, assuming that I am using this medium as a means to air out her ignorance, no matter how inadvertent, I am glad that she did not know it. Introspection, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is “a reflective looking inward: an examination of one’s own thoughts and feelings.” 

I don’t usually have internal philosophical discussions with myself. I regularly think outloud, conversationally, with someone else in the room. But this particular instance invited me to look inward, to take a moment to step back and reflect. It gave me room–room I imagine I would not normally take advantage of–to think about a concept that goes beyond itself. 

My body, I’ve decided, is a separate part of “me.” Stella, and “Stella’s body” are two different things; independent entities that operate and maneuver together, sure, but exist apart. My understanding of “myself” is purely psychological, and has nothing to do with my physical body. I can look at my hands and see them move and still not feel as though they are completely mine. What part of me that could rot away without my consent is truly mine? This disunion allows for a perspective above myself; a kind of semi-omnipotence I can utilize in quiet moments of nihilism, hedonism, etcetera, etcetera, et al. 

Let us, dear reader (I’m sorry, but the fourth wall must be broken on just this one occasion!), imagine just our eyes as they appear to us in the mirror. I will describe to you mine. A little slanted, but not so large, and brown. Thick lashes, but not long. Some say they are intense. I prefer calculating. Imagine that this is the only part of you physically that you have control over. Not the lids–your body, somehow, makes them blink for you unconsciously–just your eyes. This is the point at which your innards become your outards (out-ers?). This (these?) organ(s?), your eyeballs, are the only part of your body that is a part of the inside that can be seen on the outside. This juxtaposition, along with the merging of both of “you” (your inside being and your outside one) becoming one, opens the door for the kind of thought I am trying my best to introduce. 

It has helped me, literally, rise above. I’ve gotten pretty good at looking at myself from the ceiling, looking at the top of my head, watching what my hands do while not being in direct control. Because I am so disconnected, for a moment, my seasonal depression, my anxieties, my discomfort, is forgotten. I am a pair of brown eyes, high above myself, and I am also me, Stella, sitting at my desk or on my back in my sheets or lying across the couch in our living room, limbs strewn out and akimbo. 

This winter especially I’ve done some of this kind of thinking. It’s a different kind than I’m used to, though, because I’m not walking. When I walk, my best thinking happens. There’s something about cool, untainted air and the crackle of sticks and leaves beneath one’s feet that pulls forth things a seat at the kitchen table or the mattress in your room cannot. But because I can’t do that (I hate the snow. Or, rather, I hate trudging through thick blankets of wet) I just… write about it. Winter makes me a little insane. 

To return to my friend who sent me into this spiral (all love. Thank you very much for doing it), the way her eyes looked while her boyfriend and I explained the word to her reminded me a lot of this very concept. Alive, open. Like a bright, sparkling morning in April. I would have taken her hands had they not been preoccupied with his. It brought me joy, to explain it, and even more to internalize the thing and make it my own. 

May this convoluted essay be something that you come away from thinking deeply, the way I did this past New Year’s Eve. 

–Stella and “Stella’s body” signing off