Mirrors and self-reflection...
Oct. 30th, 2003 01:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatMind is a jumble tonight, emotions caught somewhere between depression and a sense of urgency as if I don’t do something soon I’ll be sucked down by the weight of my own inertia and counter-weights.
Have been reading lots of interesting stuff on the internet lately. From a Buddhist scholar to MC ESCHER essay, and what I’ve realized is I’m living in a world of counter-points and counter-images. According to Ryieu’s post on the ATPO board, there are 132 Buddhist hells, but Hell from the Buddhist point of view is what the damned make it. If you believe you are damned? You are damned. Makes me wonder if it is true, that this is the only life we have and since time is a cycle, a snake literally eating its own tail or a widening gyre spiraling in on itself – perhaps we are doomed to cycle back in ourselves, reliving the same choices over and over until somehow we work our way outside the loops like some bewildered weather man caught in PA on Ground Hog Day.
I’m reminded of a Toltec Wisdom book written by Don Miguel Ruiz, called the Four Agreements, which was all the rage a few years back. According to Ruiz – “what others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream”. So are we but mirrors for others reflections and are others mirrors for our own? Are we basically just sharing each other’s dreams of existence?
In case anyone is curious, I was already thinking about this before I watched tonight’s episode of Angel tonight, about how we relate to art by often projecting ourselves upon it – so what we see may in fact be distorted by what we are. Even our own definition of ourselves can be distorted through the looking glasses of our friends’ opinions, literature, and culture until we are no longer sure where their projection ends and ours begins. Is our writing reflective of who we read? If we read James Joyce instead of John Grisham would we be a better or worse writer? Or in Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy’s case – is their art reflective of the comics they read or are the comics reflective of their art? In asking such questions, do we endanger ourselves by becoming like the Wicked Queen in Snow White, constantly asking a series of mirrors who we are and hoping to find a sort of validation through their answers?
The writers of Angel the Series often reference or use mirror images to describe their characters’ dilemmas. In fact as someone mentioned recently on a list serve I frequent, Ats may in fact be a mirror world in more ways than one. The memory wipes, including depending on your definition the time reversal in IWRY, and later the literal wipe in Home, essentially create alternate realities or mirror dimensions, like the former dimension yet oddly different. Just as walking through portals lead the characters to parallel universes or hells. The trip to Pylea in S2 was called literally Through the Looking Glass. Cordelia in Tomorrow – sits talking to herself as if she were talking to a mirror. Angel, a master of self-reflection, finds himself projecting his own reflections on all who surround him and having those reflections of himself reflected back on him, until he is caught in a mirrored loop of constant reflections, yet is ironically unable to look in the glass himself. He, like the Queen in Snow White, is stuck asking the mirror what he looks like as opposed to being able to see for himself. His inability to gaze in that mirror, requires him to use his friends as mirrors – to catch his own reflection. Yet even in their eyes he is divided – two images, one that lurks in the mirror behind their eyes, the one he fears that he really is. The subconscious part he denies, which is all bottled up inside. Making me wonder if there is such a thing as too much self-reflection, leading one to be unable to see beyond the reflections themselves.
In tonight’s episode Party Animal, 5.5 ..(detailed spoilers for the episode follow)
Lorne, the original party animal, has given up sleep. Apparently W&H can do more than just bend reality, it can remove those pesky emotions and physical needs we’d rather not have – like an evil Jeanie or Fairy granting us our dearest wish. Knowledge? Bingo! Want to give up sleep? No Problemo! Sort of like instant Prozac. You can even get ennui (boredom) removed like a shot in the arm. But like all things providing unnatural benefits – there are side-effects, which are nicely hidden in the fine print. Lorne being an empath, has the nasty side-effect of losing control of his gift and having his dark ego manifest in physical form. We see the first signs of this manifestation when Lorne talks to himself in the mirror, a nice reminder of the mirror dimension Lorne hails from – Pylea. The mirror image is friendly, upbeat, positive, annoyingly so – while Lorne is dying from what appears to be a migraine headache and is stressed. After he breaks the mirror – he becomes the mirror image, the other Lorne retreating inside bottled up again.
Prior to this conversation – we see Eve mention to Angel, that Angel is bottled up, that he needs to release the energy – not brood. And while he can do it while fighting it out with beasties, his friends and colleagues can’t – they have no true outlet. Yet, one wonders if perhaps Lorne is yet another metaphor for Angel/Angelus – the evil inside Angel that will be unleashed if Angel ever loses control, lets go, sleeps? Angel like MC ESCHER’s drawings is split in two, symmetrical, the two sides bleeding into each other. When one looks at Angel, the character, what one sees is similar to what one might see looking at an abstract drawing by MC Escher and that is different for everyone. One of the best examples is the picture I’ve referenced before – the birds turning into fish or the fish turning into birds or just birds and fish. There is no correct answer – what you see is what yourself bring to the picture – that’s how abstract art often works. My brother, a conceptual and abstract artist, once told me that the point was the interaction, what the viewer felt the art meant to him or her. What they brought to it.
Lorne similarly feels a need to project his desires regarding the others onto them, fed up with just receiving the information and giving advice that is unheeded. He tells Spike to be more positive. Gunn to stake out his territory (not let Angel walk all over him), Wes and Fred to lighten up, Angel to get it on with Eve already – and they all do it. Oddly enough – each of the things they do can also be metaphorically linked back to Angel and Angel’s desires, anxieties – which are bottled up – his need to be positive, his need to stake out his territory, his need to lighten up, and his need to get laid. Lorne’s evil alter ego manifests from his rage, his frustration, his inability to get anyone to see his point of view. And who does he attack? Those who frustrate him the most – Lorne, Angel, Gunn, the two party-goers wearing animal (Human and Pylean skin) as costumes. He attacks those who would not listen, who offend him, who unnerve him – just as posters on a posting board may lash out at those who offend, threaten, or unnerve them. And, as Lorne notes – man, I must really hate myself – for it is himself he immediately attacks and knocks out. Which reminded me of Angel fighting Angelus in Orpheus last season – except in that fight, unlike Lorne’s, neither gained the upper hand. Angel similarly acts out against those who frustrate him the most. The He is frustrated with Lorne for thrusting the party on him. He is studiously ignoring Spike even when Spike wants to help, although to give him credit Spike was annoying. He treats Gunn and Wes like minions. (Which motivates Gunn to pee on his chair and around the office as a means of marking his territory.)
The solution to Lorne’s problem is relatively simple. Give Lorne back his sleep. Let him work out his pain and fear and frustration when he is sleeping. But what is the solution for the rest of them? For Angel who is still battling his own reflection, Spike who wants to be seen and useful, Gunn who wants to be appreciated and in charge, Wes who wants Fred and the others to notice and appreciate him? If only the solution was as simple as a good night’s sleep. In a way, Lorne has it easy.
Have been reading lots of interesting stuff on the internet lately. From a Buddhist scholar to MC ESCHER essay, and what I’ve realized is I’m living in a world of counter-points and counter-images. According to Ryieu’s post on the ATPO board, there are 132 Buddhist hells, but Hell from the Buddhist point of view is what the damned make it. If you believe you are damned? You are damned. Makes me wonder if it is true, that this is the only life we have and since time is a cycle, a snake literally eating its own tail or a widening gyre spiraling in on itself – perhaps we are doomed to cycle back in ourselves, reliving the same choices over and over until somehow we work our way outside the loops like some bewildered weather man caught in PA on Ground Hog Day.
I’m reminded of a Toltec Wisdom book written by Don Miguel Ruiz, called the Four Agreements, which was all the rage a few years back. According to Ruiz – “what others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream”. So are we but mirrors for others reflections and are others mirrors for our own? Are we basically just sharing each other’s dreams of existence?
In case anyone is curious, I was already thinking about this before I watched tonight’s episode of Angel tonight, about how we relate to art by often projecting ourselves upon it – so what we see may in fact be distorted by what we are. Even our own definition of ourselves can be distorted through the looking glasses of our friends’ opinions, literature, and culture until we are no longer sure where their projection ends and ours begins. Is our writing reflective of who we read? If we read James Joyce instead of John Grisham would we be a better or worse writer? Or in Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy’s case – is their art reflective of the comics they read or are the comics reflective of their art? In asking such questions, do we endanger ourselves by becoming like the Wicked Queen in Snow White, constantly asking a series of mirrors who we are and hoping to find a sort of validation through their answers?
The writers of Angel the Series often reference or use mirror images to describe their characters’ dilemmas. In fact as someone mentioned recently on a list serve I frequent, Ats may in fact be a mirror world in more ways than one. The memory wipes, including depending on your definition the time reversal in IWRY, and later the literal wipe in Home, essentially create alternate realities or mirror dimensions, like the former dimension yet oddly different. Just as walking through portals lead the characters to parallel universes or hells. The trip to Pylea in S2 was called literally Through the Looking Glass. Cordelia in Tomorrow – sits talking to herself as if she were talking to a mirror. Angel, a master of self-reflection, finds himself projecting his own reflections on all who surround him and having those reflections of himself reflected back on him, until he is caught in a mirrored loop of constant reflections, yet is ironically unable to look in the glass himself. He, like the Queen in Snow White, is stuck asking the mirror what he looks like as opposed to being able to see for himself. His inability to gaze in that mirror, requires him to use his friends as mirrors – to catch his own reflection. Yet even in their eyes he is divided – two images, one that lurks in the mirror behind their eyes, the one he fears that he really is. The subconscious part he denies, which is all bottled up inside. Making me wonder if there is such a thing as too much self-reflection, leading one to be unable to see beyond the reflections themselves.
In tonight’s episode Party Animal, 5.5 ..(detailed spoilers for the episode follow)
Lorne, the original party animal, has given up sleep. Apparently W&H can do more than just bend reality, it can remove those pesky emotions and physical needs we’d rather not have – like an evil Jeanie or Fairy granting us our dearest wish. Knowledge? Bingo! Want to give up sleep? No Problemo! Sort of like instant Prozac. You can even get ennui (boredom) removed like a shot in the arm. But like all things providing unnatural benefits – there are side-effects, which are nicely hidden in the fine print. Lorne being an empath, has the nasty side-effect of losing control of his gift and having his dark ego manifest in physical form. We see the first signs of this manifestation when Lorne talks to himself in the mirror, a nice reminder of the mirror dimension Lorne hails from – Pylea. The mirror image is friendly, upbeat, positive, annoyingly so – while Lorne is dying from what appears to be a migraine headache and is stressed. After he breaks the mirror – he becomes the mirror image, the other Lorne retreating inside bottled up again.
Prior to this conversation – we see Eve mention to Angel, that Angel is bottled up, that he needs to release the energy – not brood. And while he can do it while fighting it out with beasties, his friends and colleagues can’t – they have no true outlet. Yet, one wonders if perhaps Lorne is yet another metaphor for Angel/Angelus – the evil inside Angel that will be unleashed if Angel ever loses control, lets go, sleeps? Angel like MC ESCHER’s drawings is split in two, symmetrical, the two sides bleeding into each other. When one looks at Angel, the character, what one sees is similar to what one might see looking at an abstract drawing by MC Escher and that is different for everyone. One of the best examples is the picture I’ve referenced before – the birds turning into fish or the fish turning into birds or just birds and fish. There is no correct answer – what you see is what yourself bring to the picture – that’s how abstract art often works. My brother, a conceptual and abstract artist, once told me that the point was the interaction, what the viewer felt the art meant to him or her. What they brought to it.
Lorne similarly feels a need to project his desires regarding the others onto them, fed up with just receiving the information and giving advice that is unheeded. He tells Spike to be more positive. Gunn to stake out his territory (not let Angel walk all over him), Wes and Fred to lighten up, Angel to get it on with Eve already – and they all do it. Oddly enough – each of the things they do can also be metaphorically linked back to Angel and Angel’s desires, anxieties – which are bottled up – his need to be positive, his need to stake out his territory, his need to lighten up, and his need to get laid. Lorne’s evil alter ego manifests from his rage, his frustration, his inability to get anyone to see his point of view. And who does he attack? Those who frustrate him the most – Lorne, Angel, Gunn, the two party-goers wearing animal (Human and Pylean skin) as costumes. He attacks those who would not listen, who offend him, who unnerve him – just as posters on a posting board may lash out at those who offend, threaten, or unnerve them. And, as Lorne notes – man, I must really hate myself – for it is himself he immediately attacks and knocks out. Which reminded me of Angel fighting Angelus in Orpheus last season – except in that fight, unlike Lorne’s, neither gained the upper hand. Angel similarly acts out against those who frustrate him the most. The He is frustrated with Lorne for thrusting the party on him. He is studiously ignoring Spike even when Spike wants to help, although to give him credit Spike was annoying. He treats Gunn and Wes like minions. (Which motivates Gunn to pee on his chair and around the office as a means of marking his territory.)
The solution to Lorne’s problem is relatively simple. Give Lorne back his sleep. Let him work out his pain and fear and frustration when he is sleeping. But what is the solution for the rest of them? For Angel who is still battling his own reflection, Spike who wants to be seen and useful, Gunn who wants to be appreciated and in charge, Wes who wants Fred and the others to notice and appreciate him? If only the solution was as simple as a good night’s sleep. In a way, Lorne has it easy.
