Handheld mirrors and selfie cameras can teach us a lot.
By angling the camera or mirror a certain way, we can see and accentuate the parts of ourselves we find most desirable. We can choose to see exactly what we want to, who to show it to, when, and how. These are likely the parts we know well—parts that are well-received. But what about the parts that our mirrors and cameras aren’t actively picking up on? Maybe we catch fleeting glimpses here and there, but nothing that takes up too much brain space—like that giant chunk of hair in the back we forgot to straighten, our roots growing out, or that bald spot from a painful surgery years ago.
That all still exists…….right?
Maybe it’s not disrupting anyone to keep our angles where they are; we like what is reflected to us. I mean, who is it hurting if the back of our head is messy, right? Sure, and yet, maybe one day we go to a carnival funhouse with friends, where the angles shift and our hidden parts—those we couldn’t see ourselves—are reflected to us in ten different mirrors, distorted and twisted in ways that we can’t make sense of.