anti:freeze

me, reflected on the elevator ceiling

The difficulty can be expressed in these terms: On the occasion of certain appearances in the world which seem to me to manifest a look, I apprehend in myself a certain "being-looked-at" with its own structures which refer me to the Other's real existence. But it is possible that I am mistaken; perhaps it was only the wind which shook the bush behind me; in short perhaps these concrete objects did not really manifest a look. In this case what becomes of my certainty that I am looked-at? My shame was in fact shame before somebody. But nobody is there. Does it not thereby become shame before nobody? Since it has posited somebody where there was nobody, does it become a false shame?

- Sartre, Being and Nothingness