"Each reader reads only what is already within himself. The book is only a sort of optical instrument which the writer offers to the reader to enable the latter to discover in himself what he would not have found but for the aid of the book>"
- Marcel Proust


We are constantly surrounded by mirrors. Not just the kind you see your perfect visual reflection with - the kind that are mirroring someone or something else. The mirrors you have in your bathroom are shallow, and can only reflect the people and objects in front of them. Don't think of a mirror as something you necessarily have to see to use.

Your favorite song is a mirror, and probably a very deep and complicated one. Not only does it reflect the thoughts and feelings of the people involved who wrote the song, it also reflects certain things about culture and society. It could even reflect the flaws or weaknesses of certain individuals, or even giant corporations. Depending on how you interpret the lyrics, the song may even serve as a mirror for some of your own thoughts and experiences. Oftentimes this is what makes a song popular...people can see part of themselves in the lyrics, or someone they know and make that familiar connection. When you are in love it seems like every sappy song on the radio was written just for you, to put your feelings into words like you never could have before. This feeling can be incredibly powerful. I think many people have thought at one point in their life that someone described something they experienced as if they were in their shoes and felt every moment like never before.

And then we have images - a split second of your time worth enough words to fill several pages. Photographs and art are incredibly both complex and simple mirrors for our world - they can recall vivid feelings and create new ones that our memories seem to fail so miserably at accomplishing. When you think about it, there are so many experiences captured by other people that are freely available that you could live your entire life through the eyes of a million others. Photographs capture a place, time or image with perfect accuracy. Art captures a state of mind, a feeling or an idea for an unforeseeable amount of time. In capturing these things, the visual side of art allows us to view them as a mirror. We can sometimes see the reflection of the artist's deepest, most complex and intimate thoughts and feelings that would be failed by words a thousand times over. We can only to attempt to describe some of these things we see...there are only so many words, and a million ways to feel each one.

Many people feel unimportant because they have nothing to show for themselves. You could say they feel like they don't have a good mirror to show themselves in. When you see someone creative you see something tangible that they have, and it's easy to think "where is everything that defines who I am? Why don't I have anything to show?". Every time you speak words with meaning, experience something special with someone, or leave something positive behind you are creating new things all around you. Your thoughts and ideas don't ever have to become anything you can see to be something truly great. Even something as simple as being yourself can be simply inspiring to others. People who are true to themselves and nothing more are heroes to me. These people don't need a mask to be a real hero. I don't care if they dont have a single thing in the world to show for themselves, because by displaying their true self they are giving all that the world needs.

Help people use the right mirrors. It seems like the one in the bathroom is nothing but discouraging for many people, and we shouldn't be using that one to determine how good we look. You can be the best mirror in the world for someone else - by showing them their real beauty and talents that they could never see in the bathroom