profile pictures and portraits

Am I ugly? Am I beautiful? Am I perfect? Not your idea of perfect, but my idea of perfect. Does my photograph give a better idea of who I am than my writing, or are my cells more mutable than my ideas? In which case a photo is little more than a postcard as my life goes spinning by. In which case all of our profile photos are just brief moments that soon lie about who we are. Or perhaps they tell the truth about who we would like to be – that little part of ourselves we would like to expand and make into our whole selves. In which case my photograph tells you what I dream of being, which is far more vulnerable than anything I am prepared to express in my writing.