Mirrors

Gossip. Isn’t that all the fire these days? So, certainly we must be very involved in each other’s lives. Except, we aren’t. The so-called nosy neighbor, the rumor source in school who no-one knows about but everyone listens to, till the “I have my sources” person in those spy movies, who never really mentions who they found out from, for lack of plot; All gossipers. Because somehow, the story of someone else became yours to tell.

But at the end of the day with all this gossiping, no one manages to capture the real story. The real experience. The real opinion. Because the thing with rumors is that they become their own being. As it passes from person to person, it absorbs, adapts, assimilates; until it morphs into its own wild tale, devoid of the story it began as. So, what happened to the original incident?

Ignored is what. Similar to the emotions of the person it's about. The kindness one shows to another stops at the mirror in the morning. The consideration of a different point of view leaves the moment a different person walks in. And any traces of empathy are stomped past by shoes you’d never put yourselves in. Why? Out of the millions of reasons procured by the millions of people out there, the answer could be you. Or me. For, the one person who I give importance to is me. And the one person you give importance to is you. But how can that be bad?

Well, in truth, it isn’t bad. Not bad at all. But what makes it into the stereotypical, detestable version of the evil queen in snow white is that instead of asking “Who’s the fairest of them all” and wanting it to be us, we could agree that we’re all the fairest of them all, as far as that makes sense grammatically. And as tacky as that may sound, wasn’t that why the dwarves were able to live under the same roof for so long without squabbling with each other over who had the best hat?

And if we’re really talking about kindness, the one quality that all those Disney princesses seem to possess that makes them worthy of their title, I don’t have much to say other than all it takes is saying good morning to the passerby, thank you to the hand that helped you up and the feet that didn’t run away, and sorry if those feet really did have a reason to run away. And soon enough we will all be part of the Disney cast.

So, the next time you look at the mirror, perhaps imagine Marvel’s multiverse theory, or was that Hugh Everett III? Either way, acknowledge that there are many ideas, experiences, and emotions out there which would take a ridiculous amount of time to fathom and a million worn out socks to place ourselves in all their shoes. And if our busy, busy schedules allow for it, give ourselves a friendly reminder of the fact that while our world revolves around us, the rest of the world has its own axis to revolve around – one that is tilted by 23.5 degrees specifically for that purpose.