Language is often a reduction of experience. We have always tried to articulate the unspeakable nature of our internal states. The desperation of a starry night, the violence of a yellow room, or the silent vibration of a cypress tree—is it a landscape, a confession, or a prayer?

One thing is for certain: We can never truly translate the "terrible passions" of the heart into simple prose.

Autobiography is an act of deliberate confrontation. Artists have long attempted to document the shifting geography of the self.

One thing is for certain: We can never truly see ourselves from the outside. We can stare into the mirror, paint the contours of the face, mimic the expression, document. Like reading a diary written in a language we only half-understand—it is always a translation of the truth. It remains a subjective interpretation, a portrait not of how we looked, but of how it felt to be alive within that skin.