Painting Mirrors (Love Over Fear)

When we first start building our cohesion of the nature of reality, we see a mirror of ourselves in reality. We ask our first questions in regard to why we see what we see in this mirror. As children, we depend on others' input, they define what we see, so we paint that image on the mirror, covering the true image of our reflection to have a dependable, unchanging idea that fits with other’s beliefs and we go on to the next mirror.

The next mirror, we may be taught in school, the Newtonian law, “Consciousness is in the brain. Your body is solely physical matter.” So we paint over our mirror of what our human nature is. We use our imaginative wonder-filled minds as children and see a magical world around us, in us. We dream up possibilities, and share them with others who tell us that what we are telling them isn’t real, or impossible. So we paint over that mirror, limiting ourselves to not think further on the reflection in our own mirrors of reality. In the end as adults, we look down our hallway of mirrors of what our reality consists of, our experiences, and see no genuine reflections of our own experiences, thoughts, and beliefs anymore. In place are lifeless paintings, constructions of general consensus, beliefs that do not belong to us, and we accept them as reality. Some may be somewhat close to the reflection, some may be far away from what reality truly is, but all are incorrect; reductions of the intricacy, complexity, and infinity of our reality. You may learn about quantum mechanics, and have to go back and clean your mirror of what nature even is at the core, but it’s a messy job and you don’t know where to start. You’ve already painted over hundreds of mirrors with the reality of that first mirror that you’ve painted over.

Now you feel the need to make sense of an overwhelming heap of unknowns or otherwise recognize what you see as an individual is truly a mystery, cannot be defined and learn to embrace that notion. Cognitive freedom truly comes from accepting and relishing the unknown, the mystery. Rekindling and applying that childhood sense of wonder, erasing many mirrors and accepting that it's ok to not know everything but to learn to be content with your interpretations and experience as your reality, even if it is different from everyone else’s.

Excerpt from, “Love Over Fear: A Foundation for Autonomy”. Get the book!