9 February, 2025
We are arrested in the mirror stage.
What is a mirror? A reflective surface that presents reality as image back to the beholder. A puddle reflecting a neon night; the concavity of spoon that spins the world upside down; a smartphone and all of the people in it.
What use is the mirror? The mirror alienates the self into an other. Far from reinforcing my self-image, when I see myself in the mirror I feel so separate from myself as to think myself different and anew each time. I see my eyes only, ever in a mirror.
What use is the mirror? For some (many), the mirror is a stage where occurs the continuous reaffirmation of one’s existence in the desolation of ultramodern life. By this, I mean those highly engaged in being online and in the continual creation of the digital self, and in the consumption of the digital selves of others.
By this, I mean the mirror not just as mediator of the world, but mediator that turns unwittingly into the world.
For example, some people make their living in the mirror. They work in the mirror by selling how they live in the mirror and how the mirror is something that others should buy and live in too. In the mirror, they also sell ways you can decorate the mirror, eat the mirror, travel the mirror, wear the mirror.
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And what of... shattering the mirror?For fourteen hours in mid-January, the mirror shattered for Americans. Actually, it didn’t; it didn’t even crack. It was merely shrouded. But for those who believed the mirror was really disappearing, they admitted to hating the mirror they’d been selling to others for years. Then the mirror came back, shattered by their own doing and duplicity. Actually, it didn’t come back shattered. It came back perfectly fine. But they’ll still buy another mirror, and then sell mirrors once more.
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Does anyone else find the mirror to be so loud? When I hold the mirror up to face me, the noise is blinding. It comes to such a grinding point that I wonder why the noise won’t shatter the mirror. But I would sooner be able to picture the annihilated self before the shattered mirror.