[MENTION=10082]Starry[/MENTION]
I know what you mean. I've known three core 3s well in my life and one is very camera-aware, she's a photographer and model and every angle always looks perfect. I can be like this too, not just about my image, but about any person's image.. or any photo I take of nature, because I am very aware of beauty. Even a picture of a dead cat bleeding out of its eyes will be angled just so; because that is how I see things, I have a natural eye for beauty. It's not about trying to impress.. i have an impulse for things to be beautiful. My room is beautiful with each item placed expressively and meaningfully. I don't even have any local friends since I moved here, so it's beautiful because that is what I want, not because it impresses anybody. I am known in any place I have lived for being that person who unpacked and set up their room or dorm room along with the wall hangings before even sleeping the first night. I *must* be surrounded by beauty and honest self-expression or I cannot be creative in my own space. So this personal expression includes being angled a certain way in the camera.
I share this awareness the 3 who is a photographer. However, she is more concerned with how other people will view things. Her room at home is always a mess, but her awareness of beauty comes out almost exclusively in settings where other people will see it. I taught her photography & lent my camera & sneaked her into my college dark room when she was 15, and by the time she was 16 she kicked my ass at photography hands down and now she has this cultish kind of expression that is just soul-shaking. She's very gifted and she charges through one image after another, sticking with each lifestyle and expression of it for a few years, and then moving on to the next. She moves from one group of friends to the next, along with its accompanying style of dress and photos to express her ever-evolving views of the world. She leaves old friends, outfits and locations behind each time; though she often gets tattoos that end up collecting as marks of her past. The one thing consistent, is that everything she says and does, even openly, is about how it will be viewed. On facebook when quitting smoking she puts up a sexy photo of herself with a cig and writes, "I started smoking because I thought it looked cool, and then I kept doing it because it was a cool prop in photos," in essence. It's always about what it LOOKS like, not what it MEANS.
The other 3 friends aren't like that, as much. They wouldn't leave old friends behind or notice their angle on skype. However both of them are extremely conscious of their presentation where it counts. One has vacillated between various images, sometimes an 'image of no image' and sometimes a specific image, whether it be a classy guy or a bohemian. He told me he asks himself every morning, "Who do I want to be today? What do I want to present to the world today?" I am not accusing him of being shallow - there's nothing shallow about him. He was self-aware enough to tell me this about himself. He is an artist, and supportive to his girlfriend, and down-to-earth, we've been friends for years, and he is one of the people in my life who has been MOST real with me, critical in a helpful way, honest about things I don't want to hear, tremendously attentive when I'm in need, and willing to ask for advice humbly when he needs it. But there is still image awareness.
The other 3 I know is your textbook "rising through the ranks," brilliant, confident ambitious 3 who breaks down periodically because sometimes she asks herself, WHAT IS IT ALL FOR? She knows how to dress to pull off any role, sometimes 3 roles a day. She is 1-fixed and strives to be perfect in this presentation. But she has an extremely good brain, is overtly self-aware, and asks herself all the hard questions so she is sure that she's being honest with herself.
With a 3, image-awareness is going to be part of it, any way you slice it. I would not call taht "shallow," I'd call it fucking brilliant. It's amazing to watch them express whatever they want, whenever they want. That is not at the exclusion of qualities like 'down to earth' 'honest' 'hard working' etc. I can also find 3s to be very fearful and panicky internally, and also very humble in a way, which is why the work ethic can be strong. They don't believe they deserve to be handed things, in general; it's more, 'I know I'm capable of achieving this if I strive." And all of the 3s I know would project that thought to others too; that anyone can achieve if they strive. All of them would beat themselves up for not striving enough. That's a sort of humility.
But you can't take away their image awareness. It is there. Whether it manifests on Skype or not, is another thing, but [MENTION=5684]Elfboy[/MENTION] doesn't really seem to have that level of awareness at alll.
Well that's just one silly example anyway. This lack of moment to moment concern around his image (though he still cares about being good looking and desirable) rings much more e7 than e3.
So fucking accurate. Thought of many of my forum friends immediately...
