The Gaze Of the Other…

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By Radical Rhymes

I remember reading, a long time ago, The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith. I don’t recall it in great detail, it was for an assignment for an essay I was writing, or maybe it was even my final project, which was about freedom. What I do remember is the idea that Smith believed that virtue is overseen by a real or theoretical third person that sits on our shoulder.

Now, I don’t want to oversimplify the ideas of such a great thinker, so instead of filling this out in Smith’s words, I want to just reflect on how I interpret that; not just in an ethical sense but rather through the idea that we gauge and control our behaviour according to ‘the gaze of the other’.

I don’t know about you, but I often live my life according to how others will regard my actions. From the time I was very young, I tried to monitor how other people were reacting to me and attempted to garner approval rather than censure.

For me that was partly due to the very authoritarian regime I was raised in. My sister, who was largely the head of our house, as a result of her terrible disability (rheumatoid arthritis), dictated who I could play with, where I could go, how much noise I could make and, to a lesser, but still significant degree, what I valued and believed in.

This wasn’t all bad by any means, but the nature of the conditioning WAS bad. I was, and sometimes am even now, unable to decide on what I think about a given thing, or, choose a course of action. This was grounded in a perception that love and affection were conditional.

In social situations – even the most banal – I will worry about whether I am doing the right thing, saying what’s expected, or electing to do what I want, or what I think I should want.

Even when I’m alone I feel the eyes of others seeing my every movement, judging and weighing me. It’s exhausting and difficult to negotiate as a creative person. As I write this I’m sitting in a deserted cinema car park waiting for my elite sportsman son to finish his cricket training, and I am worried about what the few people around me are thinking about me sitting in this quiet corner in my car tapping away on this keyboard.

Do they think I’m weird? A drug dealer? A terrorist? I am constantly processing whether I appear strange to other people because – and this is the truth – I AM strange. I was raised in a household with a father who might die at any moment, a sister whose disease dominated every second of familial life, and a mother who felt (wrongly) that she was responsible for that illness. She also had the most crippling abandonment issues, which I will write about another time.

Suffice it to say, I am strange.

And that bloody gaze. Not just the hypothetical person, although that is part of the cocktail, but specifically my sister’s gaze. It has hurt me and held me back and pushed me to behave in ways I would never have imagined. Ways that have deeply wounded the most important people in my life.

Perfection, that’s what the gaze demanded, and I am not perfect. No, I am deeply, profoundly flawed. I am broken and no amount of gilded solder can conceal or beautify that fact.

However, I am trying to elude that sobering and suffocating gaze. Elude or ease away from? I can’t say for sure. What I do recognise is that the next phase in my life is to work out what I want and how I want to live.

Wish me luck!

Radical Rhymes is a professional artist working with a range of media – predominantly animal/human portraits and landscapes – including, most recently, hand painted furniture. You can see his work on Instagram Radicalrhymes1969 or on Twitter @RhymesRadical.

For commissions, please contact him on Twitter via Direct Message or by email at: radicalrhymes@outlook.com His work is also available to buy on Etsy

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