Confined. Mirrors all around. Myself. That's all I see. I am stuck. Feet firmly planted. Not planted. Stuck. In goo. I struggle. The goo snaps my frail foot back in place. I beat the mirror. Wishing it would shatter.
I know. I know of a world beyond these reflective confines. The mirrors mock me. I long to look past them, but the more I gaze, nothing changes.
The same, sessile, lonely image looks back at me. Empty. Despondent. Dull. Dead.
In my mind, I reflect upon what I know to be true. A reality beyond these irredescent walls. Reflect- as if it is a memory. It is not a memory. Memories are in the past. This is present. It is real and true. But I cannot see it. It becomes fiction to me.
Which side of my walls is actually fiction?
The outside of my shiny confines, or this funhouse in which I am trapped?
The illusion. This fake, man-made falsehood. An impostor for substance. It surrounds me. And I cannot break my way out.
I give up. I gaze at my reflection. Become consumed. Entranced. It is all I have to gaze upon. So I fixate. Everywhere I look I only see me. Naturally, I begin to believe everything surrounds this singular point. Every wall around me has an image only because I am here providing it. This is all there is. I am surrounded... By me. I am the definer of all purpose and existence. All reality has me at its center.
I gaze upon the cold, reflective images of myself. Accepting that this is all there is.
Then...
my calling returns:
A pull away from this place. A desire to shift my gaze. A hope that there is something beyond me.
An open space. A fresh gaze. A place of freedom.
I stop looking around me, realizing that what I am searching for cannot be found horizontally.
So finally... I look up.
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
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