"Convinced of their inadequacy, they strive to meet the impossible demands issued by the mirror. They may even become a grotesque to everyone but themselves. Some will commit themselves to the relative safety of an aesthetic extreme, in a radical bid for agency. But the goalposts always move, because a Reflection is the moving of the goalposts." This piece made me tear up! Recently body dysmorphia was so bad I recently saw an injector and just asked them to "make it so I wasn't ugly anymore" and it's only been occurring to me recently that the ugliness is a feeling rather than a concrete thing with a quick fix. You write about BDD so beautifully.
Brilliant, as always. I wonder whether you knew as you wrote this that Mary Beard recently talked on her podcast about the modern ubiquity of our reflections—she mentions in particular the amount of time spent having to see oneself on a Zoom call screen, (harrowing!) how we're more familiar with the landscape of our faces than any prior generation. Yet it remains the case that delusion reigns supreme. Your insight about LLMs as the next level of this, essentially, hallucinatory worldview -- a "mirror for the interior", is as apt as it is worrying to think about. I wonder, too, how your thinking on this topic informs your work as an artist. Terrific essay!
Absolutely wonderful essay. I always wonder when the point is that mirrors go from friends to enemies. Babies and children like to look at themselves in mirrors, point in glee. It seems like the age that this goes from happiness to obsession and criticism is getting younger and younger. I heard from a friend that their 6 year old daughter stares in the mirror angrily at her stomach. It makes me so deeply sad.
Beautiful! This feels true to me as a practitioner of magic. And as an artist, I am continually struggling with the project of self-protection and self-image, which drains energy from actually existing.
I'm reminded of one of the first nightmares I ever had as a child: I was in a dark room alone, staring at one of those fancy full-length oval mirrors that rotate on a stand. At first the mirror didn't reflect me or anything else, it was just black. Then it was full of an audience of faces, all of whom looked terrified. They all screamed in unison, and then disappeared. I woke up in a cold sweat. Decades later I can still conjure up the exact feeling of bottomless unease that dream left me with, and many times I have tried to work out just what it "meant."
Your essay, while deeply insightful, did not necessarily get me any closer to answering that question, but it was a pleasure to read and I completely agree that in this era of glossy surfaces it does often feel as though our real visceral selves are being demonically possessed by our abstracted selves.
I'm frustrated writing a comment right now because the only thing that can accurately describe how I feel about this piece is a 30 second voice memo of me screaming. Thank you!!!!
Oh this is so, so excellent, and a topic I think about a lot, so it was an absolute delight (is that the right word? I was engrossed, compelled, and I enjoyed it very much) to follow you through the labyrinth on this one. Have you read about the Looking-Glass Self concept by Charles Cooley? It’s what first set me off down the path of thinking about mirrors. Anyway thank you for this absolute feast of an essay.
The ego is the narrator of our story, primed by the thoughts we think others have of us. Social media imposes a specific grammar on our lives, and becomes the grimoire from which algorithmic magic binds our attention and sells it off to the highest bidder in trillions of little instant auctions.
But real magic, the kind that generates rather than extracts still lives — outside that digital grammar.
"Convinced of their inadequacy, they strive to meet the impossible demands issued by the mirror. They may even become a grotesque to everyone but themselves. Some will commit themselves to the relative safety of an aesthetic extreme, in a radical bid for agency. But the goalposts always move, because a Reflection is the moving of the goalposts." This piece made me tear up! Recently body dysmorphia was so bad I recently saw an injector and just asked them to "make it so I wasn't ugly anymore" and it's only been occurring to me recently that the ugliness is a feeling rather than a concrete thing with a quick fix. You write about BDD so beautifully.
Brilliant, as always. I wonder whether you knew as you wrote this that Mary Beard recently talked on her podcast about the modern ubiquity of our reflections—she mentions in particular the amount of time spent having to see oneself on a Zoom call screen, (harrowing!) how we're more familiar with the landscape of our faces than any prior generation. Yet it remains the case that delusion reigns supreme. Your insight about LLMs as the next level of this, essentially, hallucinatory worldview -- a "mirror for the interior", is as apt as it is worrying to think about. I wonder, too, how your thinking on this topic informs your work as an artist. Terrific essay!
Absolutely wonderful essay. I always wonder when the point is that mirrors go from friends to enemies. Babies and children like to look at themselves in mirrors, point in glee. It seems like the age that this goes from happiness to obsession and criticism is getting younger and younger. I heard from a friend that their 6 year old daughter stares in the mirror angrily at her stomach. It makes me so deeply sad.
Beautiful! This feels true to me as a practitioner of magic. And as an artist, I am continually struggling with the project of self-protection and self-image, which drains energy from actually existing.
I'm reminded of one of the first nightmares I ever had as a child: I was in a dark room alone, staring at one of those fancy full-length oval mirrors that rotate on a stand. At first the mirror didn't reflect me or anything else, it was just black. Then it was full of an audience of faces, all of whom looked terrified. They all screamed in unison, and then disappeared. I woke up in a cold sweat. Decades later I can still conjure up the exact feeling of bottomless unease that dream left me with, and many times I have tried to work out just what it "meant."
Your essay, while deeply insightful, did not necessarily get me any closer to answering that question, but it was a pleasure to read and I completely agree that in this era of glossy surfaces it does often feel as though our real visceral selves are being demonically possessed by our abstracted selves.
This one is an absolute standout, there were so many paragraphs I literally want to write down and tape to my mirror. Amazing work, friend ❤️
this is so good
I'm frustrated writing a comment right now because the only thing that can accurately describe how I feel about this piece is a 30 second voice memo of me screaming. Thank you!!!!
This is so lovely to say! Thank you
Oh this is so, so excellent, and a topic I think about a lot, so it was an absolute delight (is that the right word? I was engrossed, compelled, and I enjoyed it very much) to follow you through the labyrinth on this one. Have you read about the Looking-Glass Self concept by Charles Cooley? It’s what first set me off down the path of thinking about mirrors. Anyway thank you for this absolute feast of an essay.
The ego is the narrator of our story, primed by the thoughts we think others have of us. Social media imposes a specific grammar on our lives, and becomes the grimoire from which algorithmic magic binds our attention and sells it off to the highest bidder in trillions of little instant auctions.
But real magic, the kind that generates rather than extracts still lives — outside that digital grammar.
I highly recommend this as a companion piece.
https://radiolab.org/podcast/122613-mirror-mirror
this has found me at such a perfect moment that it felt like some sort of divine experience to read
Kingdom Hearts makes so much sense now