mirrors – mirrors everywhere

Look around you. That's right, take a good look around you. Unless you are visually-impaired or you lead a rugged, comfort-less existence out in the woods somewhere, then, while just looking around, you probably looked at a mirrored surface, something in which you perhaps saw a reflection of yourself having a look around. Many things with which we surround ourselves these days are high-gloss, shiny, or mirrored, including our laptops, automobiles, mobile phones, tablet computers, windows, watch-faces, doors, door-handles, hubcaps, handlebars, plates, pots, utensils, and eyeglasses, to name but a few. Oh the many mirrors one can gaze longingly into, losing oneself in the strangely hypnotic activity of making eye-contact with oneself. So is its profusion, and such is its commonality, that we modern persons can hardly imagine life without the mirror.

Consider, however, that just a few thousand years ago the primary reflective material was a calm surface of water, which only reflects well under optimal conditions and which requires one to lean or suspend oneself over said water to the point that objects start falling from pockets and fluids start dripping from the face. The ancients, it appears, understood the dangers of self-observation, telling a cautionary tale about a young man named Narcissus who so loved looking at his own reflection that he dove into a pond after it, where he was promptly ensnared and drowned by pond-nymphs, who had been lying in wait. (Similar to other old stories, I believe that the tale of Narcissus is meant to be taken as a warning of the dangers of emulating his foolish ways and getting caught in the tractor-beam of one's own reflection.) It wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that many people could afford mirrors or, for that matter, glass; before the 18th century, the only persons who could afford mirrors were fantastically rich individuals so corrupt and so cruel that one wishes they'd have stared at their own reflections more often instead of eradicating villages and enslaving and torturing their own subjects. (I believe that the myth about seven years of bad luck resulting from a broken mirror dates to before the Industrial Revolution, when hand-portable reflective objects were prohibitively expensive.)

So, today, are we better off having all these mirrors everywhere, or can mirrors be blamed in part for our rational-selfishness (i.e. avarice), that wasteful, ego-centric, quasi-capitalistic economic system that drains our lives of intrinsic value and imprisons our hearts in shells of self-serving egotism, rendering us incapable of respecting ourselves, each other, and Nature? I find it logical to assume that staring constantly at one's own reflection reinforces the notion that we must first look out for ourselves, for number one, before sacrificing our precious time or hard-won greenbacks on others. Since thinking about these questions, I have tried to look into mirrors only when necessary, such as when shaving my face or checking for ticks, avoiding even looking at my own reflection when typing; when I do stop to look, I am often shocked to see the image which I have come to associate with myself staring back at me, an image which correspond but poorly to the ebullient spirit that burns deep within my loins. Which, I think, is the crux of the matter: mirrors disassociate one from one's tender humanity, from one's intrinsic goodness, fueling one's ego and facilitating the ego's hijacking of the soul, which results in greedy, self-righteous, and short-sighted behavior such as conspicuous consumption and self-banishment into wage-slavery. Therefore, dear friends, avoid a mirror today, and rescue the soul from the ego's sticky clutches. Mahalo.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit