Others as the perfect mirror

I feel tempted to say that others reflect a more accurate image of ourselves than any actual mirror could ever hope to accomplish. I've grown incredibly aware of how my interactions, or lack of, with others are ultimately showing me more of who I am than any amount of conjectures inside my head. We just don't pay attention to it most of the time; or we get into the habit of dis-association whereby we kid ourselves into thinking that we have nothing to do with others' reactions or behaviours towards us.

But social dynamics are mostly based on a game, or perhaps I should call it a 'dance', of give and take, from the more obvious to the most elusive base (ie. subconscious actions/reactions, gestures, choice of words or lack of). Every time we're faced with a person, we're seeing a different configuration that could have been us. Sometimes that configuration happens to be like a perfect echo of ourselves, sometimes that configuration is like a mirror image of who we are inside, which we could never stand and therefore spent years hiding from the world. Whatever the configuration, people reflect one another - from a mere glimpse to an almost perfect mirror image.

The inner world we all have for ourselves is like a realm of 'what could be', but in itself it never actually is you in reality. What draws out who you are is the world at large, its people and chain of events pushing you to pick the choices that will highlight what you're really made of.

Right now, I'm just a sorry ass. It took almost 30 years of my life to realise that. Before that, there were always some excuses to hide behind. There was always something else to blame, or it was just easier leaving it all to rest with my own sense of helplessness. Don't get me wrong, shit happens all the time - sometimes it can be so bad that it will affect you to the point of breaking, but even in the worst situations, it's how we decide to see it that will define the outcome.

I knew about all this, or sort of understood in my own head that it was the case, but it wasn't before I confronted the illusory image I had of myself with others that I started to realise its crucial importance. And so the more I confront my own sense of self with that of others around me, this world at large, the more 'the mirror crack'd'.