I have a body, and I don’t think that I particularly like it. I think there is something wrong both with my body and something wrong with the fact that I don’t like my body. I like to think I am worldly enough to know that “fat” is not a bad word, that to be fat is not insulting or a negative aspect of myself and yet whenever I’m trying to convince myself to keep going on the treadmill the mantra in my mind is variations on “stop being a fat bitch”. I guess that is my self-awareness coming through. 

The encyclopedia entry on phenomenology talks about how phenomenology develops awareness in many forms through various experiences. I like to think I am good at being self-aware, I feel like I have to with all the expectations placed on me. Going over every little thing I do, say, and all my experiences from a third-party perspective. This third party in actuality is all of my perceived thoughts and shortcomings about myself coming back to influence me in fun new ways. It’s like a weird meta-self-awareness. My idea of self comes from what I think other people think, which comes from what I think about myself, which is influenced by society. It’s circular thinking that I can’t really break out of. I am experiencing immanence, trapped in myself by my own thoughts.   

My idea of self is tinted. Tinted by the fact that I present in a feminine way and therefore am told that I need to have certain interests. Tinted by the ideas of my family and how I am to be like them in all aspects. Tinted by the idea of what it means to be black while not being “fully black” (I’m mixed). I think most of all I am tinted by the words people use. How fat is not a bad word, but I still feel self-conscious for being fat; how I can hear my mom telling me to not call us poor even though there was a winter without electricity; how I feel queer in a hypothetical way but too afraid to claim the label for myself. This tint is not necessarily a bad thing, it is a method of self-evaluation. I can think about how the words I say come off to others in unintended ways and how to fix that, or how even though society tells me I can’t be into traditionally nerdy things I still can because it’s a tint, not who I am. Where this self-evaluation is harmful is when it is no longer a tint and my perception of myself is distorted from trying to match all the ideals enforced on me by me. It’s a weird funhouse mirror that is also a two-way mirror at the same time. Focused on me with aspects of society mixed in, but all in a wonky self-conscious masquerading as self-awareness way.