Mirror, Mirror

When I was little, my grandmother would take me to the Chatswood shops on weekends. We'd walk around for hours, and at the end of the day, I'd usually end up with a new book, ten or so dollars in coins and a McDonald's lunch. I've got a lot of memories from those outings, but one of the clearest (and most abstract) is of standing between two mirrors in a ladies' bathroom, trying to see my face in a series of echoing, bending reflections.

I don't recall whether it was my first experience with the sensation, or exactly how old I was - around six or so, from where I remember my eye level resting - but there was something powerful and a little scary in it. After turning my head this way and that, I finally realised that I could never see myself reflected all the way through: but I could see everyone else.

Reading Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad for the first time in high school, I was captured by a paragraph warning of the danger in standing between two mirrors. It was this:

"You can use two mirrors like this, if you know the way of it: you can set them so that they reflect each other. For if images can steal a bit of you, then images of images can amplify you, feeding you back on yourself, giving you power...
And your image extends forever, in reflections of reflections of reflections, and every image is the same, all away around the curve of light.
Except that it isn't.
Mirrors contain infinity.
Infinity contains more things than you think.
Everything, for a start.
Including hunger.
Because there's a million billion images and only one soul to go around.
Mirrors give plenty, but they take away lots."

And the more I think on it, the more it seems like standing between two mirrors is the best way of describing human belief. We can never fully scrutinise how faith or scepticism suits us: always, our head gets in the way of looking at itself. We can only ever watch other people, and be watched in turn, but no matter if we shut our eyes or ignore the glass, the reflections keep on bending away into ever. And what's being reflected is us: bounced back, altered, observed and in plural, but if we didn't stand between the mirrors, there'd be nothing to reflect.

Which is a poetic way of saying that no matter what we believe, or our meta-thoughts on why and how and we believe it, the process always has more to do with who we are in the first place than most people will comfortably acknowledge.

Just as the reflections in the mirror can prompt us to alter our appearance, or prolonged staring engender a perception of beauty or ugliness beyond what is actually shown, so too can examining our beliefs lead to their alteration. But in arriving at them first off, no matter how unconsciously, we still choose the terms and conditions of our faith.

While some are strengthened from seeing their convictions reflected, others are weakened, or humbled, or shamed - and some see only themselves.

If you were to stand between two mirrors, what would you see?