People can be very possessive of their right and ability to define themselves, to be the sole arbiter of the world’s official view of them as a person, a view more desperately clung to the more insecure that person is and one more in danger of violation since the advent of ubiquitous social networking on the Internet.

Many people are confident enough in their appearance and the contexts of their lives to withstand such a challenge, but many more may not be so willing to see their image. We go through our lives not seeing ourselves as we are. Aside from the occasional mirror, we don’t even feature in our own world view; out of sight is out of mind, and our own appearance, once set in the morning before we leave the house, is simply not on the radar for many people. This isn’t a concern for some, but others may be, consciously or subconsciously, aware that they aren’t quite the person they want to be seen as, even perhaps obsessing over this gap in reality. The self they see in their minds is different from the self that others see, and since they don’t see themselves, the mind-self, the “residual self image” that Morpheus mentions in The Matrix where everyone looks cooler in their minds than in reality, takes precedence. For some people, this is the only way they get through the day, through their lives.

Even the most insecure of people cannot present the perfect outward appearance they seek to project all the time, however, so when you or I come by with a camera and just, without any warning, redefine them by our own criteria, seemingly merely by their happenstance appearance at the time, setting it in stone with concrete photographic evidence, it could seem like we did infringe upon something deeply held and personal. Suddenly, their real appearance bursts into reality in a way no accidentally caught glimpse in a reflective surface could, for this is a mirror that everyone is looking at. A video image may not show the sordid details, lost in a blur of movement, but an image won’t fail in this respect. And unlike a video, an image won’t end, letting us go back to our carefully modeled perceptions.

After failing to find a movie I wanted to see at Q-Square after work Friday (damn 3D flicks everywhere are ruining my chances to see a film that doesn’t give me a headache), I rented three DVDs to watch over the weekend: Quantum of Solace, The Handsome Suit, and Bodyguards and Assassins. It’s Saturday night now, and I’ve already finished all of them.

The latest James Bond flick was, to be frank, boring. Yes, yes, 007’s doing things his way and M gets to clean up the mess. Again. I’d had higher hopes for this as I liked Daniel Craig’s performance in the last one, Casino Royale. He’s really the first actor to grasp the nature of Bond since Connery, and reading Fleming’s books lately just shores up my opinion in this respect. But there was no soul to this one; it felt like the bits and pieces left over from the last film. The writers must be struggling for new material after going through each and every book and short story Fleming penned, and it shows. It may be just as well that the studio is having a hard time coming with a means to make another one. It’s a pity that Craig, probably the last Bond actor actually older than I am, might not get another chance to excel as Bond, but there are plenty of other things he can excel at, I’m sure.

Bodyguards and Assassins, I’d thought from the preview was just another historical kung-fu action piece, but it turned out to be a rather over-the-top tragic/patriotic piece where almost everyone dies in the end after trying to protect Sun Yat-sen on a trip to Hong Kong. It was well done, of course, but I wouldn’t have rented it if I’d known its true nature. Donnie Yen is always interesting to watch, and were most of the other actors, with the exception of the annoying kid who played Lin Yu-tang’s son.

The Handsome Suit, a Japanese film where an “ugly” guy gets to play at being “handsome” with the aid of a mechanical suit, was actually pretty fun; I liked the underlying message that most people are actually quite ugly, no matter what they look like on the outside. The film managed to take this sobering truth and gussy it up with lots of up-beat music and colors, but it came through anyway. I personally would prefer the main character’s original appearance to his “Handsome Suit” form, but I’m just strange like that. Again, I really should learn some Japanese instead of having to rely on subtitles for these films.

I don’t write here very often these days, obviously. Most of my scattered thoughts can be communicated through Twitter and Facebook, and though I don’t keep up with the site’s statistics, I suspect that viewership has largely disappeared as anything over 140 characters is now officially “long-winded.” But I still like to write, so although I feel that the whole blogging thing has run its course, those of us who began before everyone had a blog will most likely continue after it has become obsolete. Hard to believe I’ve been doing it for almost a decade.

It is another brilliant Monday following a rainy weekend. I’ve been trying to get a photobook project together recently, just a quick and dirty trial run for something more serious later on. I’ve also been getting feedback from some friends on my army book, which, after a bit more revision based on their feedback, should be ready to shop around. I rehearsed with Noname Yu and his band the other night, as he wanted some brass backing for some of his songs. I’m not sure how that’s working. I also watched the movie again for the first time since I finished editing it in 2008. I’d meant to just take a quick look and ended up watching the whole thing.

Today during my lunch break I was wandering around the site of the old Beef Noodle Street near Xining Road. As I ruminated on the sad state of affairs there, with only a couple of tarpon-festooned stalls hidden in the deep shadows under the thick banyan trees, I came across a team of workers emptying an old Japanese-era house of the several tons of detritus that had filled it over the decades. Old dishes, clothing, pillows, furniture, all being carted out into the street. I looked down at a book on history with a cover that might once have been blue, and wondered who had owned it, who’d read it, who’d bought it at a bookstore and carried it home to put on their bookshelf. I thought of the books in my apartment; perhaps someday the book of Magnum photos I got the other day at Eslite will end up in a trashheap somewhere as well.

Yes, I’ve been a bit depressed lately. No doubt the weather, the changing of the seasons, has something to do with it. Relationship troubles as well, on which I won’t go into further detail here. I feel like I need a break, to go somewhere to recover, perhaps another sea voyage. I read recently of a ship, the Cosco Star, that plies the route from Keelung to Xiamen. It’s been a while since I explored a new place on my own.

But it will have to wait a bit longer; I’ve got too much going on at the moment.