"It’s weird to be called a celebrity or talk about it. I don’t talk about being a celebrity in my business meetings. I don’t talk about it with my friends. It’s not a part of my life. It’s a media perception of who I am." -Mary-Kate Olsen

Who am I? That's a hard question, if not the hardest. I certainly don't know who I am and it's often perceived that the I is part of what it does. You are what you do. Although, looking at it literally, I am what I'm typing at this very moment and I mostly disagree or think what I'm typing is incorrect or incomplete. So thereby I'm incorrect or incomplete. But when is someone incorrect or incomplete?

Riddle: What have black and white stripes, Karl Lagerfeld, Choupette, Mary-Kate Olsen and Kurt Cobain in common?
Answer: They're all featured in this picture.

Although I absolutely adore Mary-Kate, I don't totally agree with her. She says that her being a celebrity isn't part of who she is, because it's a perception by the media (someone who's not her). While I guess that when someone acknowledge you as a being, is thus through the perception of others. Hereby not saying that you are what others think you are. But if no one acknowledge your excistence, how ought we to know if we excist? Again, hereby not saying that we are someone when we become well-known, because that's beyond the confirmation of our excistence.

We perceive ourselves differently and the confirmation of others is apparently part of this. Because Mary-Kate doesn't point out to everyone she's a celebrity, doesn't immediately mean she isn't. Maybe her being a celebrity isn't in her eyes the truth, but it is a part of her. She's been shaped by it from the beginning of her existence which gives her the ability to deny it. It's something that's come on her path and must've influenced her in a certain way. So the beings that acknowledge us influence the I.

Karl & the Olsen twin hanging out. Karl & Choupette hanging out. That Karl is a busy man.

However, there's also someone like Karl Lagerfeld:

"I build my own reality. I've created my own system that lets me sort out my life. I enjoy the luxury of being at the centre of this complete universe that's mine".

Karl is the one who confirms his own excistense and therefore excists. And maybe we don't need others than ourselves to perceive the I of who am I. But than again you need to be very certain of your case to be a Karl. Because Karl is Karl. And who am I to disagree with him.

"The personality I project to the media is a puppet. It's me pulling the strings. The most important thing is for the strings to be well tied".

Here Karl states that he's Karl and he's in control of what we get to see of him. However you could argue that what we see is perceived differently going by person. And maybe that's a part of how well tied the strings are (what do we get and how can we disfigure it?). So you could say that even someone like Karl ought to have someone to confirm his suspicion.

And then there's of course the famous "Cogito ergo sum" (Je pense, donc je suis; I think, therefore I am) by René Descartes. Which, like Karl, doesn't need confirmation of others because the I perceives itself. Therefore Who am I is I because I thought about who I am.

So basically, I don't know who I am and you may know who I am, but that does or doesn't influence the I of my being. Yeah...

Love,
Dominique