Reflection

Who is that person in the mirror?

Do any of you ever ask yourself that question when faced with your own reflection? And how do you answer? I'll tell you mine: At times, I have little idea. All I'm certain of is there is always more than meets the eye, and no matter how much I think I know about myself or how much understanding I think I have, I find out that in reality, I don't know jack.

For those of you that know yourselves well, click away now cause you'll be bored. For the rest of you (if there are any of you) know this: uncertainty is a shared feeling.

There is a line of thinking that says the Universe is a teacher. It will keep coming at you until you get the lesson. Every failure to learn leads to the repeat of the lesson, in a less subtle manner. Someone like me, a little slow off the draw, well, you can imagine the universe can loose patience. The Universe, while possessed of infinite wisdom, has little tolerance for fools. Thus, the need for the occasional Universal Ass Kicking.

The Universe doesn't ultimately allow you to get away with much. I can stand in front of that mirror, thinking I've got it all figured out, strengths and weaknesses, oh yes I KNOW myself and my capabilities and limits, walk out the door and WHAM! find out quickly how wrong or ignorant I am about myself.

Now, I get these sorts of messages all the time. They come up in my artwork, my day job, personal stuff, finances, life issues, just everywhere. Like I said I'm a slow learner. I'll finally learn something, feel all good about it, then get reminded there's a lot more to be done. So then I look in the mirror and say, "I just don't know, but I"m trying." Then the Universe says, Yoda-like "there is no try, only do, or do not". Or something like that.

Funny thing about mirrors: the best ones, the ones you REALLY can see parts of yourself in, they're not freestanding. Oh no. They are generally held up by someone. Someone strong and patient. The Universe only has so much time for these things, and often enlists someone to help. Holding up a mirror, I think this is not easy work. In fact, I think it can be exhausting and thankless. I can imagine the Universe or the enlisted mirror holder, hearing me say for the hundredth time "I'm trying"or worse yet witnessing a total lack of clear vision and understanding, completely losing faith and patience and smashing it over my head. As well they should. An attention getter that, with the added life educational experience of cleaning up the wreckage.

It would be so much easier if we really knew ourselves inside and out, what drives us, how we're wired, what we're capable of and what we should guard against. People are complicated, there's a lot of layers and in some of us (myself for example) a good many of them aren't all that great. I don't know if it's possible to get rid of the bad layers, or even if we should. I have some idea they are part of a whole cloth, ragged stray threads here and there, maybe even a rough patchy spot or two or three. I believe that we shoudn't define our selves by these bad parts; somehow we should figure out how to see the whole of ourselves and others, and on balance hope that the good far outnumbers the bad.

So that's what's on my mind. If you'll excuse me, my ass hurts from being rightly kicked, and I need to put a bandaid or three on my hard head. And I have some glass to clean up. It's probably gonna take me a while. But that's what needs done. Learn, clean up, move forward.

Oh yeah, one more thing: we all know who our mirror-holders are, the people that allow us to see ourselves. Make sure the ones that hold yours know that you love them and appreciate them. They often deserve much better than they get. Do yourself and them a favor and see yourself clearly. It's a whole lot easier than cleaning up broken glass.