Representation of Self

[wampus-cat.livejournal.com]

I can't say for certain exactly how much sense this will make to you guys just reading it without knowing exactly what goes on inside my head (I kind of rambled, so it's a bit unpolished), but I think I was able to make my thoughts clear enough. Hopefully. :P

I sat down and tried to think of some eloqent way to discuss how I see myself as an animal person, but it's proven to be more difficult than I anticipated. It's always been pretty vague- half of my therianthropic equation is still woefully undefined, though I feel I'm getting closer to pinning down an exact animal-, but I didn't realize how much so until I tried drawing my "inner me".

I guess I'm one of those people who doesn't always like to think about deep soulsearching things, especially when said things are still gray areas. I could sit all day and scibble and try to draw something that's profound and simply "me", but I have yet to come up with something that's spiritual or truly representative of my inner self. Sure, I've drawn "artistic", furry-like representations in which I've taken liberties with how "I" appear, but any time thus far that I've really tried to draw me in a "real" fashion, I draw blanks. Then I become frustrated, abandon the project and go back to sketching goofy things, like horses in straight-jackets and the like. I want to draw something better, more meaningful and representative of me, but I just can't right now.

I think it may be because I'm a bit of a vague person in general. Everything about how I represent myself is fuzzy, it seems- sexuality, gender, animality. That doesn't mean I don't know exactly who I am- I feel that I truly do know myself for the most part, and the stuff I'm still figuring out will reveal itself to me in time (like my "second animal")- i just have difficulty thinking of myself in that symbolic manner. Odd, since I'm a pretty spatial person, very in tune to my environment; but that's just how it is.

So I guess in summary I don't have a definite, concrete vision of who I am as a therian. I think of myself as a mountain lion-ungulate-human, and I'm okay eith that for now. Once I become confident in the missing peice to my therian puzzle, I'll try to draw that physical representation of me again. And hopefully, it will be real this time.

Comments

[sonne-windsoul.livejournal.com]

As more people here express their thoughts on this subject I think it becomes clearer that quite a number of therians don't have a strict, stagnant image of themselves (as human and their therioside(s)), and though some of us would like to have that one, artistically-depictable image of ourselves, there are many of us that just can't efficiently 'squeeze' ourselves into that kind of single depiction. Some therians can make a single form/image of themselves (whether in their own mind, or in visual art), but I tend to think it's likely a rarer occurrence than the non-stagnant or more vague images of one's self as human and animal. And as Aloiis was mentioning earlier, even with a single, stagnant image of one's self as a therian, there's still much more to that person's self-concept than that image--it's something that is felt, experienced, and understood, and thus not just limited to visualizations. Who we are and how we are represented to our own selves encompasses more than just visuals.

So yeah, I can relate with you about the vagueness and not being able to make any visual/artistic depiction of "myself" since I can't refine myself that much into something so unchanging, and so strongly visual. I also in ways think it fits well with what most non-human animal minds would do--it would be feeling and understanding aspects of itself, its body, and movements instead of viewing them from a visual (especially highly visual) third-person perspective; so not that having such a visual and detailed third-person image of one's self as a therian is 'wrong' or unrealistic (so to speak), but I just tend to think it comes highly from one's human perspective and for some people that human perspective is very keen at being able to visualize what the human and animal aspects of him/herself look like (together or separately). So I find both general types fine and interesting in that I like to be able to see a person make visual art of what they therianthropically look like, rather than it being a mostly aesthetic fursona/persona kind of fiction character, but I also find it interesting to hear of other people's feelings and experiences in having more vague or fluid self-concepts that they can't depict much if at all through visual art because of that vagueness or fluidity of self.

[wampus-cat.livejournal.com]

"So I find both general types fine and interesting in that I like to be able to see a person make visual art of what they therianthropically look like, rather than it being a mostly aesthetic fursona/persona kind of fiction character, but I also find it interesting to hear of other people's feelings and experiences in having more vague or fluid self-concepts that they can't depict much if at all through visual art because of that vagueness or fluidity of self"

Definitely agree here. I think art is a great tool towards that kind of expression and understanding, but so is writing about it, how one experiences it- especially if you have difficulty with figuring out the right way to use art for that purpose.