There is a scene in the fairy tale Snow White where the Queen goes to her private chambers and summons up a mystical spirit from behind her mirror and then utters this famous question: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most beautiful of all?”
Even when I was younger I thought it was odd that a mirror was turned into an object of wisdom. I suppose while some women vie for power through their beauty, so an object that reflects one’s image can be a useful tool. Women use mirrors to primp in their bedrooms, in the bathroom, in the foyer, and even in the car visors. (Seriously– how often does one have to check on their makeup!)
But now I wonder if this is a tale about two does competing for a buck but rather of the blindness we all have to ourselves and our circumstances.
The premise that most people struggle with self-perception is not unreasonable. It’s not like we are walking around like the emperor without his clothes. But that’s because we’ve used our preception of feedback from those around us to navigate more successful reponses. Clearly it is better to have honorable and trustworthy friends than flattering advisors.
Slowly, over time, people can pull away from those who want to provide the direct and reliable feedback. This can be especially true if this is delivered in the form of a reminder, that perhaps the time has come to respond with a little work in kind. It is easier to replay the hands in a slightly different fashion so as to change the score tallied up for the rubber. And the player who can lay out each players cards and reroll the game becomes inconvenient.
So people turn away and cancel those who are inconvenient to the perceptions.
A mirror is meant to bring the reality of the moment back into view. We can all imagine that we have not aged, yet creases at our brow lines are hard to ignore when they reflect back at us. Perhaps the mirror in Snow White is not a call to compare beauty but a forecasting of a change that is already in play– an advanced warning of what is to come. But try as she might, the Queen fails to suppress the natural unfolding of events.
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