Why do mirrors exist?

Anubhav Rath
Nov 2 · 2 min read
Photo by Fares Hamouche on Unsplash

For some reason, mirrors have always intrigued me. They have a subliminal mystery attached to them. Their silvery, speck-less sheen creates an illusion that makes me wonder how human beings survived when there weren’t any mirrors. It’s not that I spend a large part of my day in front of a mirror, but it’s just that whenever I use it, I feel compelled to wonder — ‘Why do mirrors exist? Why do we humans use them? Do we need them, really?’

The American confessional poet Sylvia Plath writes as a mirror:

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see, I swallow immediately
Just as it is, un-misted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful — 
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.

I ask myself, is it true that mirrors do exist because they show the truth? And for that matter, which is the truth — the person we are on the outside or the one that lurks beneath the exterior, someone no mirror could ever show.

For me, mirrors exist and humans need them only because they don’t show the truth. The truth that a human is and not what he looks like. A truth which defines a person, and not an appearance. A truth which we may not like to know about ourselves.

We wear masks and each day we look at the mirror to make sure that the right one is on.

I believe, the day mirrors become truly truthful, all one shall hear is shattering of glass and beliefs alike.

Anubhav Rath

Written by

Researcher. Dreamer. Infrequent Writer.

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