“Man shouldn’t be able to see his own face–there’s nothing more sinister. Nature gave him the gift of not being able to see it, and of not being able to stare into his own eyes. Only in the water of rivers and ponds could he look at his face. And the very posture he had to assume was symbolic. He had to bend over, stoop down, to commit the ignominy of beholding himself. The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart.”

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

I’ve never heard of Pessoa and am curious about his work. I’ve never considered the effects of the mirrors. I love the idea that to see ourselves, there was a certain level of humbling we have to engage in. This is what I love about thought. There are so many aspects to life that, in time, fade. We have no idea what life was like before mirrors. We have no fundamental understanding of the ways it may impact us.