mirrors, finally
I told you that I'll blog something about mirrors. Well, here it is.
(Digress: I just realized that I've been blogging quite a fair bit these days. Yeah, I have. On another side note, I haven't actually been working on my story these nights. My mom's been on the bloody warpath again, and I don't really want her to chance upon me while I'm writing at night: she'll bitch about me not sleeping and shit like that. In other words, fuck that shit. I'm going old school with this story - mostly because I'm making this one substantially longer than the ones I usually write - which means pencil, paper and eraser.)
So yeah, mirrors. If you read my old blog, you'll know I have a small axe to grind with mirrors. Apart from that though, mirrors have struck me as pretty interesting things.
How often do you look into mirrors... let's say in a day? You do that while you brush your teeth (I don't, I brush my teeth in the shower), preen your pretty tresses (I don't), wash your face (again, in the shower)... so maybe, what, 5-10 times a day? What do you see? Yourself, obviously. But what do you see?
Mirrors reflect all things, even darkness. We see the odd out of place strand of hair, we see the hidden pimple on our forehead, we see that offending piece of spinach stuck in between our molars. But mirrors too reflect us, don't they?
In my naiveté and curiosity, I stood in front of a mirror this evening before I left the house for an engagement, and pondered about mirrors and the nature of reflections. I still can't look at myself in the mirror, but a lot of adjectives came to mind. Tall, thin/slim (pick your own euphemism), plain, empty, drained... more kept popping up the more I pondered in front of that silvered piece of glass. I quickly dismissed these thoughts, and instead concentrated on prepping myself for said engagement.
Now that I'm home, snugly in bed, laptop purring warmly on my lap and the fan chugging away like an idling motorboat, again does the mirror appear. I know that I can see myself in the mirror, both physically and metaphysically. But can you? Sure, unless you're blind, of course you'll be able to see me physically. Metaphysically? That's a whole new ball game.
Ignoring all the philosophical bents to the question, I really am referring to the person as a whole, and not just the outer physical manifestation. I'm here, look at me. See me. I could be sitting right opposite you, looking at you, but you might never really see me. Then again, who really does see you, right? I wonder how many of us can honestly and truthfully say that we have someone who does, and/or that we do indeed see the other in the sense I mean.
I don't really know who I am any longer, for this summer has been a really rough one for me. Even more now that I'm leaving in less than a month. No mirrors or amount of reflections seem to come close to revealing who I now am. (Is it possible to fully know oneself though?) I honestly don't know. You would think that with all the thinking I've done as a philosophy student, I would be best equipped to perform this task; yet with all the thinking and self-reflectiont that I've engaged in over the last few days, I haven't even come close to an inkling.
And to think that this is just yourself. How about the other person? Do you see who the other person is? People are always in a state of flux - one moment they're friends with you, the next they could be howling to spill your blood; one moment you could be all hunky-dory with your best mate, the next she/he could be scheming to plot your downfall etc - and when you put that together with the fluidity of human situations, throw in a healthy scoop of emotions and irrational behavior, you end up with well, real life.
But aren't we all just reflections of the people around us too? Aren't you a reflection of your parents, your siblings, your peers, your tutors, your tutees, your nearby kopitiam Indian who flips his prata with a fancy two-and-a-half twirl? Short of you attempting to flip your next prata like he does, you're really just a walking mirror sans silvered backing. You reflect not only your own inadequacies, fears and insecurities, but also your strengths, confidences and beliefs; at the same time, anyone who bothers to get to know you will also see the same things of the people around you in you. We aren't just our own persons, we're always a collection - a mishmash, if you prefer - of the people around us.
Some people are just invisible to us, while others are often too large for reality to accommodate them into its arms. Some people start off being utterly important, then end up blending into the tapestry of commonality; some people are nothing more than mere acquaintances, till you somehow end up in a one-on-one situation with her/him and you find out that she/him is the best thing in your life. Or something a little closer to myself: sometimes you find the one good/best thing in your life, and when you try to grab on to it so you'll never let it go, you find the person attempting to wrench themselves from your grasp. There is no judgment to be made here, whether it's a good or bad thing (both the grabbing and the wrenching), but rather that you can hurt yourself, and more importantly, the other person should you try to grab on. Maybe that old adage does have some measure of veracity in it: if you love it let it go, if it comes back, it's yours to hold. I'm a little disinclined to take it with anything more than a heavy pinch of salt, but like I said, this is real life.
Real life is far too real at times.
(Digress: I just realized that I've been blogging quite a fair bit these days. Yeah, I have. On another side note, I haven't actually been working on my story these nights. My mom's been on the bloody warpath again, and I don't really want her to chance upon me while I'm writing at night: she'll bitch about me not sleeping and shit like that. In other words, fuck that shit. I'm going old school with this story - mostly because I'm making this one substantially longer than the ones I usually write - which means pencil, paper and eraser.)
So yeah, mirrors. If you read my old blog, you'll know I have a small axe to grind with mirrors. Apart from that though, mirrors have struck me as pretty interesting things.
How often do you look into mirrors... let's say in a day? You do that while you brush your teeth (I don't, I brush my teeth in the shower), preen your pretty tresses (I don't), wash your face (again, in the shower)... so maybe, what, 5-10 times a day? What do you see? Yourself, obviously. But what do you see?
Mirrors reflect all things, even darkness. We see the odd out of place strand of hair, we see the hidden pimple on our forehead, we see that offending piece of spinach stuck in between our molars. But mirrors too reflect us, don't they?
In my naiveté and curiosity, I stood in front of a mirror this evening before I left the house for an engagement, and pondered about mirrors and the nature of reflections. I still can't look at myself in the mirror, but a lot of adjectives came to mind. Tall, thin/slim (pick your own euphemism), plain, empty, drained... more kept popping up the more I pondered in front of that silvered piece of glass. I quickly dismissed these thoughts, and instead concentrated on prepping myself for said engagement.
Now that I'm home, snugly in bed, laptop purring warmly on my lap and the fan chugging away like an idling motorboat, again does the mirror appear. I know that I can see myself in the mirror, both physically and metaphysically. But can you? Sure, unless you're blind, of course you'll be able to see me physically. Metaphysically? That's a whole new ball game.
Ignoring all the philosophical bents to the question, I really am referring to the person as a whole, and not just the outer physical manifestation. I'm here, look at me. See me. I could be sitting right opposite you, looking at you, but you might never really see me. Then again, who really does see you, right? I wonder how many of us can honestly and truthfully say that we have someone who does, and/or that we do indeed see the other in the sense I mean.
I don't really know who I am any longer, for this summer has been a really rough one for me. Even more now that I'm leaving in less than a month. No mirrors or amount of reflections seem to come close to revealing who I now am. (Is it possible to fully know oneself though?) I honestly don't know. You would think that with all the thinking I've done as a philosophy student, I would be best equipped to perform this task; yet with all the thinking and self-reflectiont that I've engaged in over the last few days, I haven't even come close to an inkling.
And to think that this is just yourself. How about the other person? Do you see who the other person is? People are always in a state of flux - one moment they're friends with you, the next they could be howling to spill your blood; one moment you could be all hunky-dory with your best mate, the next she/he could be scheming to plot your downfall etc - and when you put that together with the fluidity of human situations, throw in a healthy scoop of emotions and irrational behavior, you end up with well, real life.
But aren't we all just reflections of the people around us too? Aren't you a reflection of your parents, your siblings, your peers, your tutors, your tutees, your nearby kopitiam Indian who flips his prata with a fancy two-and-a-half twirl? Short of you attempting to flip your next prata like he does, you're really just a walking mirror sans silvered backing. You reflect not only your own inadequacies, fears and insecurities, but also your strengths, confidences and beliefs; at the same time, anyone who bothers to get to know you will also see the same things of the people around you in you. We aren't just our own persons, we're always a collection - a mishmash, if you prefer - of the people around us.
Some people are just invisible to us, while others are often too large for reality to accommodate them into its arms. Some people start off being utterly important, then end up blending into the tapestry of commonality; some people are nothing more than mere acquaintances, till you somehow end up in a one-on-one situation with her/him and you find out that she/him is the best thing in your life. Or something a little closer to myself: sometimes you find the one good/best thing in your life, and when you try to grab on to it so you'll never let it go, you find the person attempting to wrench themselves from your grasp. There is no judgment to be made here, whether it's a good or bad thing (both the grabbing and the wrenching), but rather that you can hurt yourself, and more importantly, the other person should you try to grab on. Maybe that old adage does have some measure of veracity in it: if you love it let it go, if it comes back, it's yours to hold. I'm a little disinclined to take it with anything more than a heavy pinch of salt, but like I said, this is real life.
Real life is far too real at times.
NIGEL
4:37 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home