It is often said that one should live in such a manner that sleeping at night is peaceful, in the popular words, ‘no sleep for the wicked’, or even that they may like their reflection in the mirror. While this is good advice, it is mostly from the viewpoint of perfection, making decisions one is proud of; it presupposes this idea of carefully thought-out good morality, and even though this is possible, it is not always attainable.
I was having a conversation with a friend the other day, and we ended up discussing an experience I had with a particular guy I dated. We were trying to make sense of why this guy acted as despicably as he did and why he kept reaching out years later when he decided to ghost me when it really mattered. He then said, ‘Maybe he always thought of himself as a particular kind of man, but when the situation came up, he realised that he fell short. A situation like this tells you more about yourself than everyday activities.’
This is not the kind of tea you want to share publicly; if not, I would have provided more context, but as far as this post is concerned, the important thing to remember is that I wondered for a long time about how this person was capable of such a level of deception and cowardice. I felt betrayed for a number of reasons. First, the idea that I was not as good a judge of character as I had made myself to be. Second, that I was gullible and regardless of what he did or didn’t do, I felt rage for myself for being so susceptible to being manipulated by a person with such an obvious character flaw, with my level of self-awareness.
The statement uttered by my friend is what provoked this post. Looking in the mirror shouldn’t be about liking what we see. It should simply be the objective act of looking, observing, and taking notes. It is, of course, fantastic to approach a mirror and love what is being reflected back, but that is just coincidental because you may as well approach that mirror and not like what you see. Well, job done by the mirror.
The idea here is to summon the bravery to look in the mirror, being willing to accept whatever reflection is presented without embellishment. Some days, you are going to look in that mirror and maybe see a monster, a monster that you don’t even know how it came to be, but is there, a monster you do not know how to tame. You will see the beast because the beauty and mirage have faded, and this is not about a rose-coloured glasses perspective. I am talking actual deep reflection of a pure state.
In reality, looking in a mirror is beyond the literal idea of standing to check your outfit or apply makeup. It is a deep sense of reflection that objectively reports the state of things as it is, that goes beyond facts and represents the truth. It is looking and knowing you fall short, but you take notes anyway. It is why some people will irritate you because they reflect the many ways you could be doing better. Some situations will show you who you really are, and that’s not the time to hide away in shame and refuse to see correctly because you’d rather hold on to the previous image you have captured.
Looking in the mirror is about commitment to objectivity. To be your own best admirer and critic, to be able to behold your glory and your shame with equanimity. The beautiful thing about doing this act correctly is that it reduces the need for external validation or the unnecessary pressure to succumb to hateful observations. When done correctly, looking in the mirror comes with humility. The ability to see yourself exactly as you are without camouflage, overestimation or underestimation. It is about a paradigm shift that comes with noticing new features, resemblance or fading away. A freckle there, dark spot here, the same way you’d notice changes in your physical body, but this speaks to a soul audit.
More important than the bravery required to stand before the mirror to observe your image is the correctness of the mirror within which you look. The mirror presenting your reflection must not be tinted. Even for you, it is important to filter impurities that may not accurately represent the image you already know. Sometimes, standing in front of the mirror will be about affirmation, a reminder of things you already know about yourself; other times, it is about discovery, finding new elements; sometimes, it will be about dreaming, fantasising, about becoming, beholding your aspirational self; it is not just about filtering imperfections, it is also about extolling perfection. It is for these reasons that the mirror revealing this must already be true as is.
We struggle with the concept of truth as humans because more often than not, what is true depends on the narrative and the narrator, and being human, we know that on some level we are all capable of deception on a grand scale, falsifying if necessary and mildly altering. I think this knowledge is what should make one pause when advancing any form of truth, the scepticism that if it originates from fallibility, then it is possible that it is not absolutely objectively true. The other aspect is the fact that we all have blindspots and that’s the point, we cannot see beyond the point we have capacity.
This is where the need for other mirrors comes in. This, however, does not change the central idea that bravery is required, the correctness of the reflector, and innate scepticism to always dive beyond one’s blindspots. To constantly assess what one calls truth, whether it is still always true. Maybe central to the idea of truth is that it is eternal, in that even with every form of embellishment, the core is preserved. In different languages, different tones, under different lights, a melange of perceptions, the core is unaltered. To make this concrete, just imagine telling the story of rape even when it is told as a joke, there is a level of discomfort that the very description of the act brings that it doesn’t matter the audience, there’d be a hush reflection, even the perpetrator is not spared, and this has nothing to do with courtrooms or social courts.
Lastly, looking in the mirror is about remembering there are no absolutes, so even what you see is mutable, even when the mirror as the truth revealer is static. So when you behold yourself, it should be with the idea that there have been different other ‘yous’ and maybe more to come if you are lucky.
If you made it this far in reading this post, you should be able to deduce by now that this is a form of empowerment, a new way of dealing with cowardice. To say to yourself, I have become a monster, I need help, or I can no longer handle this, it is bigger than me. To correctly diagnose yourself based on the symptoms accurately reflected to you. To call yourself the right name without being scared of the gravity of your discovery, to feel fear yet observe, to want to run but plant your heels anyway until the observation is complete, to back away but remember the image you now carry without wearing the shame for long, as you work on metamorphosis till you are brave to look again.
This post is not about what you do after you discover you don’t like what you see. No, it is about now. Self-help is for another day. This is about the first step in the journey of a thousand miles…
Xoxo,
Dcconoisseur.
Connoisseur of Memories 