The Stranger in the Mirror

 In the late 1990's a Television show appeared called Babylon 5. I found it after it's run was over. I very much liked, and still like, this show. It was Science Fiction, with a prewritten 5 year story arc, good casting, good writing, and good acting. In my opinion.

In this show there were two very advanced races of beings. One was called the Vorlons. The other was called the Shadows. They were represented as being millions of years older and more advanced than humanity and the other "younger" races.

Each race had a demand question. What I mean by that is a question that demanded an answer. It was in this question that they figured out who you were and how they could use you.

For the Vorlons the question was "Who are you"?

For the Shadows the question was "What do you want"?

For most people these questions are very hard to answer. Even if, or especially if, we think that the answers to these questions are self evident. And, I also submit for your consideration, the things that seem most self evident to us are our biggest blind spots. We are unable to see because we have the illusion of an answer in the way that does not require any further examination because it is "self evident".

And usually that answer, our Self Image, is not the one we would see if we were able to look at ourselves honestly. Our self image is a mix of pressures of Family, Friends, Society, the Law, and other outside forces.

Things like making children feel less than or too much. These change who we become. Or religious pressure to conform to a particular doctrine. Or school mates bullying and other pressures to conform. There are more. and we face these throughout our lives.

And we are all created by those forces. It is a very rare individual indeed who can become the person they wish to be without that image being affected and twisted by the forces around us.

To the best of my knowledge I have not yet met one who has been successful at it.

The questions, "Who are you" and "What do you want" are not answerable for the vast majority of us. We cannot know because we have very little idea of who we really are and what we really want. And the vast majority of people stay locked in that place totally unaware that the person that they see in the mirror is not actually them but a stranger in disguise.

I know that for me the only way that I began a journey of self discovery, thus stripping away the person that I thought I was and beginning the discovery of who I really am, a journey that continues, is because I reached a point in my life that it was either take that journey or die.

Most people never get to that place. Never.

So they keep going thru life being the stranger in the mirror. Occasionally dreaming of becoming something else and not understanding why. And dismissing those dreams as impractical if they even think of them at all.

And, what if, just possibly, we followed that idea? What if we made the choice to become something greater than we actually are in this moment? What if we finally got that we were meant for more than this and did not want to be limited by those beliefs of who we should be installed by others? What if we chose to become...

Well, it involves a lot. A lot of looking at, and acknowledging, who we think that we are. And that usually involves some, at the very least, existential pain. Walking out of the person that we know, the stranger in the mirror that we think we are, and walking into that unknown person that we created this life to become, despite all of the fear of the unknown, and into a person who we really are and will spend the rest of our lives getting to know.

That, my friends, is a Hell of a Journey. And that journey never ends. One don't stop one day and just stay where one is at. Because then you slide back into being that stranger in the mirror again.

It is always a forward journey. And either the journey continues or, just like paddling a boat upriver, or the current of identity carries one back to where one started.

And that is much more painful than whatever one needs to go thru in order to keep on becoming. At least in my experience. Even though it might not feel that way in the moment that it is happening.

My call to action to all of us, and always to myself, is Be Brave. Examine one's self and see where we can all be better. See where the person that you are no longer fits YOU and Become. Become something greater than you are now.

The journey is usually painful. Sometimes dreadful. Always illuminating, after you get thru something. And always worth it no matter the outcome.

Socrates, when on trial for his life, which he lost, said "The unexamined life is not worth living". In that statement he asserted that a life without critical self reflection, philosophical inquiry, and the pursuit if virtue is fundamentally unlivable and lacks true human value.

I assert that the unexamined life will leave one as a person who they never intended to be. That family, school, society itself, made it impossible to be ones own self. Not because any of those things are bad or evil. But because we mold and shape our children into our image of who we think they should be, usually completely unconsciously, because that is safer.

To live an Examined Life therefore takes Bravery, the Willingness to Face things within that can be very uncomfortable, and the Honesty to accept who we have become just is not working as well as it could.

And all this can be true even though your life is working really well for you. It can be true even when you have a Good Life, a Life Worth Living. The Human Condition is that two different ideas can be true at the same time.

And, for most people, staying inside the person that you already know and living the life that you have been living will continue to be fine. Nothing bad will happen. Life will still work for you very well. And that is all ok.

And, you can still wonder every once in a while, "Is this all there is? Was I not destined for something more? Something Greater?"

And in the moment when you have that thought you face a choice. Look it in the face, admit that there is more for you to become, and commence the journey. Or dismiss the thought and wonder when you became so impractical.

I invite you to become. Become the Hero of Your Journey. Become someone Greater than you are in this moment. Become the Person you created yourself to be in that moment before time began.

It is a great and wonderful, often uncomfortable, and so rewarding journey.

This I promise you is true.

Namaste 🙏