To live and die before a mirror
'The dandy can only play a part by setting himself up in opposition. He can only be sure of his own existence by finding it in the expression of other's faces. Other people are his mirror - a mirror that quickly becomes obscured because human capacity for attention is severely limited. It must therefore be ceaselessly stimulated and provoked. The dandy is always compelled to astonish. Singularity is his vocation, excess his path to perfection. Perpetually incomplete, forever on the margin of things, he forces others to create him, while denying their values. He plays at life because he is unable to live it.'
Albert Camus