Saturday, April 2, 2011

02042011

Reflect your tears.

I'm mildly hungover at the moment and my lips are bleeding of dryness. I looked in the mirror this morning and was not exactly pleased with what I saw. I suppose no one is exactly pleased at their own reflection in the morning on the day after. Bags under your eyes, your hair is a mess and, in this case, your lips are bleeding.

I think looking into the mirror is one of the most egocentric acts a human can perform. You look into the mirror to see yourself, to admire or loathe your own appearance. You'd be surprised at how much time you actually spend in front of a mirror, solely looking at yourself. You never look into the mirror to see someone else, do you? No, you can just look at them with your own eyes, no mirrors involved. You can theoritically look at most parts of yourself with your own eyes too but most often, we resort into staring into our own reflection. Why? What is it that interests us so much in our own reflection? Do we not know already what we should approximately look like in that moment?

Narcissus was a beautiful hunter. He loved his appearance and felt need to see his own reflection, just to see how beautiful he was. He knelt by a lake on a daily basis to see his reflection in the water. He stayed on his knees for long periods of time, just looking at himself in the lake. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen - his own face. One unfortunate day, fate decided to interfere and forced Narcissus into getting lost in his own looks. Narcissus fell faceforward into the lake and drowned there. The story continues from here along two paths. One path leads into a beautiful flower growing by the lake where Narcissus had fell - the flower called narcissus. The other path leads into the lake's fresh water transforming into salty tears. The tears of the lake, were they tears of beauty, tears of vengeance, or tears of fate, who knows? All we know that Narcissus was too beautiful and got lost in himself.

“I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected.” -the words of the lake as written in The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (a book I have yet to read)

I never want to see myself in the mirror and think of how amazingly handsome I am. I never want to be fascinated of how beautiful I am. My own appearance is something I always want to keep under control, somehow. I want to feel humble everytime I look in the mirror and see myself. Something still doesn't look good, something needs improvement, something looks nearly horrid today. There's a fine line between satisfaction and narcissism. You can feel good about yourself, but you can't drown into the mirror. That will only end up in tears shed by your own reflection.

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