On the wall there is a white hole, the mirror. It is a trap. I know that I am going to let myself be caught in it. I have. The grey thing has just appeared in the mirror. I go over and look at it, I can no longer move away.

It is the reflection of my face. Often, during these wasted days, I sit here contemplating it. I can understand nothing about this face. Other people’s faces have some significance. Not mine. I cannot even decide whether it is handsome or ugly. I think it is ugly, because I have been told so. But that doesn’t strike me. At heart, I am indeed shocked that qualities of this sort can be applied to it, as if you called a piece of earth or a lump of rock beautiful or ugly

Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartre)