Mirrors

There are two types of people - those with mirrors, and those without. With mirror, a person is able to reflect more clearly, he is able to see himself from a third person point of view. If he likes what he sees, he keeps it up. If he doesn’t, he knows what to change. On the other hand, a person without a mirror is very complacent. He is carefree and not very conscious about what people think. A mirrorless man is content with who he is, and very rarely tries to dig deeper or hide. To me, mirrors are both blessing and curse. The mirrored man is self-conscious and self-effacing, often leading to paralysis by analysis, while the mirrorless man is straightforward and transparent. I am much more comfortable to be with mirrorless people… what you see is what you get with them. Meanwhile, mirrored people are like icebergs, with 90% of their identities and intentions hidden from view. In the end though, I believe that it is the mirrored man who can make the more principled and though-out decisions, as well as make the most of himself, while the mirrorless man is the happier and more contented of the two. I myself bear the constant burden of a built-in overarching mirror, always within my eyesight, reflecting my conscious glares. It’s plenty useful especially for a writer, but sometimes I prefer to get lost in the flow at least once. I want to experience what it is like to live in a world without mirrors.

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I was supposed to end this reflection, but a curious insight came into play after the last line: Indeed, what is a world without mirrors? How will we deal with people when everyone can see us except ourselves? How will the world be when we can see everything except our own faces? I love to do out-of-body imagination experiments, and put myself in the shoes of a man in a mirrorless world. I imagine that it will be a more equal world, because much of what we make of ourselves come from our self-esteem. In a mirrorless world, the ugly man will be that much more confident, while the handsome man will not be as haughty and headstrong. In a mirrorless world, criticisms from other people will rise, but criticisms from the self will fall. We won’t have as clear-cut an idea about who we are, and that can be both good and bad.