I saw a man the
other day – he was walking down Madison in a dark navy suit, carrying a cell
phone to his ear and a leather attaché case to his side. His attire was
immaculate, his swagger – unobstructed. I could make out the thin pinstripes in
his suit and the stitching in his brown leather shoes. I also couldn’t help but
notice the bright silver watch which just peeked out from underneath his shirt
cuff as he help the phone to his ear.
Although there
were many things in front of him which he could have obstructed his path – from
people, to puddles of water – his eyes were not focused in front of him. Nor
were they focused on the street, which was overrun by aggressive taxis eager to
pick up the next fare. Instead, his head was turned slightly towards the
building he was passing; his eyes fixed on the glass windows of the ground
floor coffee shop.
Like every
sidewalk down the streets of Manhattan, this one was lined with glass windows
which reflected the cars and people who passed by. The funny thing was, in his
distraction he failed to see a coffee cup which had been strewn to the side.
Apparently lost in his own image, he stepped on the cup, which was still
slightly filled, and covered his brown leather shoes in brown liquid coffee. His
immediate reaction was to step aside and stare at the cup as if it had come out
of nowhere – intentionally dispensing its contents upon his shoes. He then
threw up his hands in frustration, shook off his shoe and continued walking. It
wasn’t long before he caught his gaze in the reflection once again.
I had to stop
and give that whole sequence of events some serious thought. I had never
noticed how much I looked at my own reflection until I saw a man so infatuated
with his appearance that he made a fool of himself on the streets. There are
mirrors everywhere in this city. Walk down the sidewalk and you’ll see a
hundred thousand panes of glass floating above the streets reflecting
themselves and the world around them. What huge egos and crippled self-esteems
do these mirrors reflect every day? Is our image really that important to us
that we can’t function in a world without mirrors?
I glanced at
myself in the mirror. I saw myself in the middle of a cityscape surrounded by a
dozen other people. I saw my orange American Apparel T-shirt, and Kenneth Cole
faded jeans; my Nike Freerun 2’s and my Sketchers black leather belt. I saw the
book bag on my back and the gym bag on my shoulder, as well as the iPod in my
ear and the cell phone in my hand. All of these things have told the world
something about who I am and what I am like. I used to have an English teacher
in high school who said “You can tell everything you need to know about a
person by the shoes they are wearing.” While the point was used facetiously to
instigate debate, I couldn’t help but think about how true that statement is in
a variety of circumstances.
Dirty shoes can
mean you’re athletic or outdoorsy, whereas clean shoes mean you’re classy and
fashionable. Are these statements true? Not in all cases, surely, but a second
point then comes to mind- does it matter if they are? I hate that we live in
such a superficial world where image counts for 6 and personality is a measly
extra point. What should it matter whether I wear a dirty tank top or a
perfectly tailored blazer, if I can play Bach immaculately or establish
differential equations?
But I do love
images, and, if I had to be completely honest with myself, the single most
important image to me is myself. And maybe it’s not because I “care what others
think”, but, rather, I subconsciously justify my own success and self-worth by
the way I appear outwardly. Maybe it does matter that I wear the freshest
clothes and listen to the newest music, because otherwise my mind would not
accept me as belonging to society. I think we all have some kind of deep desire
to make ourselves look like what we think our social environment should look
like.
I guess the
mirror is the vessel which connects our image to our social world. We walk and
we talk, but more importantly, we look – at ourselves and the world around us.
There must be a reason for the world of mirrors which we walk through every
day. I think my biggest fear is being alone – not physically absent of company,
but void of any social connection which expresses my mind and my heart to my friends.
Being genuine is the single most respectable trait a person can display, and
toward that end the mirror shows the ultimate truth. The next time you’re
walking down the street and you see an especially reflective window pane- take
a look. Do you like what you see?
