The Self, the Mirror, our Shadow and its Fear
To feel fear we need that social empathy dental floss, as feelings like this can not make sense if only one exists: It’s not a feeling we can have without the existence of others. Self-awareness can be put on this scale too, as we can’t be self-aware if we don’t have the reality of the consciousness of others. Others as mirrors of our self, being the I a mirror of others.
This self-awareness exists within a collective no matter if there’s only a serpent, an Eve and an apple, or the biblical metaphor. We are self-aware due to the others, from whom we, in a sense of collective energy and collective intelligence, go to pick up references and parameters. We decided, or someone decided for us, that we need others to understand our selves. Do you? Do I? Yes, we somehow need external parameters and references so we can build societies and religions in which we can fit. Or not. It’s your own choice, hence why you’re given the ability or capacity to choose. Not to judge, which is a human’s arrogance since we’ve created gods as an excuse, but to get references so we can choose. Or act to fit, if not force to fit, in case you’re afraid to choose differently.
Fear comes also from this self-awareness of the collectiveness: we are now afraid to be judged because we judge others. We become arrogant as a self-protection when we become self-aware, or as bad response if we have the “not fit here” feeling of superior being.
But what is a superior being in a collective sense? Can we keep measuring by the IQ, penis size or bank account? No.
Even if you have references that make you aware of your IQ or penis size, neither can make you superior. In fact, what can make you feel superior is the self awareness in a collective intelligence that shows your own flaws, absence of other things, or rejecting the idea of having flaws like any other human will make you superior by fear of imperfection, as if perfection would exist, zooming the what society takes as important.
You then in a marketing operation sell yourself as the best in anything, making yourself feeling superior as if the connection to the supremacy of the gods we have been creating since we became aware of the collective energy. And this is so simple rule that became one of the biggest clichés: How can you sell yourself as a superior brand if you don’t believe in yourself? This knowledge can make a priest to be followed as we were raised to believe of their connection to gods, or even a writer to be read when we believe that writers have something important to say, even when we don’t understand a thing of what he writes. But yes, writers are supposed to be masters in culture, as we are supposed to have read and understood the classic Roman and Greek philosophers and poets.
In this line of thoughts, a high priest is to be followed so we can have a better awareness of our spirituality, as a writer is to be followed so we can have a better awareness of our intellect.
Bullshit. Let’s not talk about pubics. You can do better than that, if you plant and cook your own vegetables instead of buying them pre-cooked in a plastic ready to be cook in the micro waves. Mind laziness is the worst form of laziness.
And this is what has been given to you by the ones you follow. By the collective energy you somehow picked up, maybe by that mind laziness or even in a moment of distraction. And the worst of all, if you didn’t understand yet, you’re aware and you feel incapable of discerning by yourself, protecting from others.
If you’re a follower, you’re an example of nothingness. You can be smart, but that is just a fake mask of not being intelligent, or not being aware of your own ability to choose, to create and re-create yourself. To be aware of yourself among the collective energy. The human reality. Your own fear of being judged by being different, comparing yourself to others, not understanding that you’re not being yourself but the product of what others think, as collectiveness, the other structure which is out of yourself.
Who wrote that mirrors are man’s worst invention?
A man always carries 2 things out of his own body for the whole lifetime: his own shadow and his own mirror. Any of them can both attack and/or cherish you.
Is the existence of others that bad for our own single existence in which you’re allowed to think by yourself?
I have Asperger Syndrome, so I lack social empathy by nature and as compensation I was given a quite nice IQ. This has been my tool for understanding the existence of others, observing attitudes and reactions in a more psychological and sociological way. I’ve been always an observer of others, growing up choosing and shaping my own attitude. The lack of social empathy makes that I don’t feel jealousy, greed, etc, which by observing it I understood that can only make people sad. Or sad people, as they need what belongs to others not being satisfied with what belongs to one self. To be satisfied people needs what they don’t have? How much energy and life you loose on this? Energy and life that you can use to nurture and mature and build yourself within all your personality.
But no, people facing others in a collective awareness loose their energy trying to be themselves as simple mirror of the society… to feel accepted, ignoring the sadness of not being able to be real and honest with their own selves.
So what’s the relation of the I with the Other? The existence of the awareness of the self projected other or the other projected on our self. In the most stupid way or behaviour, some people think that the best way to avoid being judged – oh fear! -, is to be the first to do it: judging others on their differentness. Instead, wouldn’t it be more intelligent to just accept the differentness itself? Yours and others. Why fear takes us to stupidity, acting with such ignorance, making yourself believe that you’re acting intelligent?
Here we go again to the collective awareness, and religions, and politics, and other collectivities to be followed which gives you a fake security immediately after creating monsters for you to be afraid of. Just look under your own bed.
Did you realise already that the collectivities and groups you follow and to which you seek for protection are the ones who created the monsters and fears? Isn’t it time for you to wake up and accept the fact that the only real fear you have is to not be accepted in your own differentness?
But that can only happen when you decide to look at your inner rather than look to the superficiality on others, loosing your own energy, life and self-awareness, the real one. The real you.
The other is made of the same essence of you, with his own potential differentness: exactly like you.
Do you understand that by making this you’re just projecting your own consciousness out of yourself when you most need it for you? That can only makes you sad because you’re loosing it to the others, creating a bigger gap between your now broken self.
How can one be complete when one can offer his parts onto others getting them back mirrored in broken pieces to puzzle your self… Again?
Isn’t the energy lost worth more than allowing yourself to go deeper and more conscious within yourself?
Those who are eager to learn and to share are probably the most joyful ones in their deepness, understanding the joy as a constant learning uprising curve.
Loneliness is nothing else than the feeling of self loss in which you loose yourself projecting your own consciousness onto others, purely expecting it back and healed, when we are not aware that the best healer is the one himself.
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Text and photographs by Gonzalo Bénard, visual artist and author.
on twitter: @GBenard
When I’m not blogging on 2HeadS about photography, I’m doing photography, walking, cooking, reading or thinking how can I get to the roof to be naked up there counting the clouds or even watering the plants while fighting with dragons to feel myself a hero. Or just guiding my tutees. All these while writing a new book and preparing new exhibitions and developing new projects.
Hi there.
