Facing the Mirror.



I had been pondering a concept of self judgment and whether or not we are capable of truthfully judging ourselves.
It is a term and concept that I call Facing the Mirror.
I find that a mirror can actually help in illustrating this concept to attain true self judgment but why would one want to do something like this to themselves?

Self improvement mostly. There is always room for self improvement.

The issues against this working at all:
First of all the human heart is possessed by seven deadly sins. Granted the concept of "Seven sins" is Christian BUT there is foundation to this labeling of human weakness. But are sins weaknesses?
This is complicated but, no. The seven sins are part of our survival instincts but like instincts we appear to have no control of them. It is the loss of control or giving in to the urges rather than trying to heel them back that makes them sins. It is an over indulgence that makes them bad. Eating in itself is not bad. Eating sweet food is not bad. When you eat to the point of Obesity then it is a sin of gluttony. This is just one example of an instinct that becomes a sin.
The darkness and weakness of the human heart is a problem. If we had no pride at all we would be slovenly, lazy, pathetic wastes of skin. Too much pride becomes Narcissism and Vanity. It is these two things that interfere with truly viewing yourself in "the Mirror."
Second is the fact that we perceive everything from our own point of view. Without Empathy or Telepathy there is no way to get a second opinion that would count. It is impossible to feel or experience anything from another person's point of view. You can be told but are you able to take in everything that person is trying to say? Sometimes again the human heart and pig headedness manage to derail a truthful self evaluation.
Third is fear. We fear what we do not know or understand innately. We also fear that what we may feel about ourselves is overly reactionary and critical but are too afraid to face it and the consequences that come.
Religion plays into this part of self evaluation. Many people give up the ability to face themselves and give that up to a higher power. As an example, in Christianity one is forgiven of their sins by accepting Jesus as your savior and lord (which is utter poppycock) to allow them to overlook the fact they are perverted lying backstabbing self indulgent pieces of human debris. Their sinful nature is absolved. With God in the way there is no way one can judge themselves for themselves.
In summary to this just being human works against being able to rationally look at ones self and see the faults that lie there.

With that aside there is a flip side to this.
You can be far too over critical of yourself as well. We either refuse to look at the mirror or we stare into it too long. We distort the image and sometimes we see a hideous monster where we should just see our self. Other times we see nothing but Beauty incarnate. All we see is perfection or abomination.

To look into the mirror is not an easy thing. In my mirror I seen a hate filled angry mouse. It is frustration at not having the power to affect serious change and protect itself from the evil it is surrounded by. With the mouse is a monster. It is darkness and profanity. It is the thing that whispers bad things in my ear and it is faceless. It is my evil side. I also seen myself an animal but not in the sense of a bestial thing. I seen myself as a creature like all others. I realized that I was no better than the fly annoying me buzzing me one too many times. Its most basic wants and needs were exactly the same as mine.
When I finally realized what I was seeing I also came to the realization that it was a part of me religion had tried to submerge. I could no longer rationalize good and evil in the same light. I seen my evil side and came to a realization that no matter how much I didn't like it evil was a part of me as much as the good. I have done bad things I knew were wrong in the past and I probably will do other bad things as well. In this revelation I found that Evil was my survival instinct and that it did have its place as long as I didn't let it take control and become over indulgence.

IN this knowledge I have found a strange but incomplete inner peace. I sincerely hope that I see myself truthfully but I try to keep in mind that I see things through colored glasses sort of. Ultimately I embraced my evil half and tried to come to an accord with it. My evil half is like a embarrassing family member like a big brother who cannot keep out of trouble and keeps punching you in the shoulder hard. But conversely he is the one person who will stand by you no matter what. I just accept it for what it is. it is there whether I like it or not. Like God I have found myself between good and evil and in this place I choose balance. It is the most one could hope to achieve in life.

The fact is we may never find the one real love in our lifetimes. The odds are against it. A lot of time we can find compromise but in all reality we want in our hearts to find the one that will make us complete. It is part of human nature. No one can actually fix you or change you. Change comes from within first. Sometimes there are things you cannot change and acceptance of that is just as hard as trying to improve yourself.

You know when you are successfully looking into the mirror when you see yourself and know what you are looking at is you for as flawed and imperfect as you are. You will see what you need to change and what you should leave alone. It is a sense of inner peace that helps strengthen you on your journey through life when you realize yourself. It is finally realizing who and what you are. It is not about making some spiritual realization. Looking in the mirror is all about trying to see yourself for who you are without judgment and fear. Looking in the Mirror is trying to find peace within. The Mirror is the thing we use to see our self.

Have you ever pondered the band name "Third Eye Blind" as a concept in itself. It applies here because the Third Eye looks out from us like our own eyes. You cannot use it to see you from within. The Mirror is what helps up look upon our self while looking with the third eye.



On a final thought, if you think you are lonely think about God. Do not think of God in any sense other than imagine being the supreme consciousness. There would be no other like you. All those thoughts and no one to share them with. No challenge to your existence, nothing remotely equal to you, and self mutilating boredom! I think the one reason God gave us free will was to see if any of us would choose to elevate ourselves to being like he, she, it, whatever. Without a right and wrong choice there is no learning.
Heck, God may not even have any choice in Its existence because if God is all knowing and all powerful God must act on what God knows and God has no choice in the matter because God Knows WHY already.


If you hadn't noticed I like to chew on Theologists for breakfast!
Try discussing the concept of God being Good and Evil because God is all things with a Christian some time!

FUN STUFF!


Also there is a episode of LEXX called "the Beach" in the third season where Stanly Tweedle had died and stood between heaven and hell in final judgment of himself. He met himself and his "self" was not exactly understanding. Stanly wound up being his own condemnation. It is an interesting illustration of this article. Great show. Highly recommended.


Don't forget to take time to smell the roses!

I think this is an interesting question because when you speak about truthfully judging yourself the question comes to mind, "By who's standards?"

Who decides where the lines should be drawn?

The seven deadly sins are supposedly the following:

Lust
Gluttony
Sloth
Wrath
Greed
Envy
Pride

I've looked at these concepts over the course of my life, I would say that I'm guilty of the first three, and not guilty of the last four at all. Although I have been guilty of the last four when I was younger, but not any more.

My greatest sin of all, at this point in time, is sloth without a doubt. Although that has not always been the case. There were times in my life when I was a work-a-holic and people were telling me that I need to take more time to slow down and smell the roses.

The driving force behind my sloth today is my complete and utter disillusionment with mankind. In other words, I am driven to sloth because I'm depressed.

I suppose that doesn't "excuse" it, but then again what is sloth? Sloth is nothing more than doing less than someone expects of you.

Clearly if I personally feel that I'm guilty of sloth, then I'm doing less than even I expect of myself!

Otherwise what should it be measured by? Who's doing the judging? If there is any God, that God has never given me any specific instructions or goals to reach, therefore how could I even be commiting sloth in God's eyes?

What is sloth in the first place?

In my case, sloth may be sitting here typing in this post instead of cleaning up my kitchen!

It's not that I'm not doing anything, it's just that I'm not doing the most productive things (at least if having a clean kitchen is productive). On the other hand if my job was to share information on the Internet, then I'd be doing the right thing by sitting here replying to your post.

Sloth can often amount to simply doing the wrong things. Things that aren't in line with your goals I suppose.

So clearly I must have a goal of wanting a clean kitchen since I feel that by not cleaning it I'm committing sloth. But I just got up and I'm drinking a Zinger Tea. Owl go clean up the kitchen in a little bit.

I think sloth can only be related to goals. So to not have goals automatically creates a situation of sloth. This is why a lot of motivational speakers talk about the power of a goal-oriented life. If you know what your goals are then you know what you need to be doing to reach them.

But if you lack motivation to have any goals, then I suppose you'll be guilty of sloth. So lack of motivation and goals quickly leads to sloth.

There. I just analyized why I'm guilty of sloth. I lack motivation to achieve goals.

Gluttony is probably my second greatest sin, or maybe equal to sloth. One of the reasons I commit sloth is because of gluttony. Gluttony doesn't mean over-eating, it means over-indulging in anything. Sitting at a computer all day typing into forums is a form of gluttony.

It is this kind of gulttony that I'm guilty of to be sure. I waste far too much time typing in very long-winded posts like this one that nobody wants to read anyway.

Again, my gluttony is driven by the same forces that drive my sloth. Loss of desire to achieve goals. Evidently I'm just not interested in achieving goals. I've given up on life and now I'm just sitting around waiting for the show to be over. I only do what I need to do whilst waiting to die.

Evidently that's considered to be a sin. But again, who's the judge? If atheists are correct then it's no sin at all. On the contrary there can be no such thing as sin if atheists are right. On the other hand if there is a God then what am I supposed to be doing? God never gave me a purpose in this life or a mission to accomplish.

For all I know I'm doing precisely what God wants me to do by typing in this post. If that's the case then typing in this post is more important than my own clean kitchen which would be merely something that I personally want.

So unless we know precisely what God wants us to be doing how can we even know whether or not we are doing it?

Clearly any God who is going to judge people on whether or not they are doing the 'right' things, must first tell that person what to do. Such a God can't be playing hide-and-seek.

What am I supposed to be doing? I have no clue. No God never gave me any instructions. Therefore come judgment day he or she can hardly blame me for not having accomplished whatever it was that God had in mind.

A God who expects people to accomplish specific goals must speak up. Playing hide-and-seek just won't cut it.

The last of the seven deadly sins that I might be guilty of might be lust.

But again, who's judging? By what standards? I certainly don't feel guilty about lusting for companionship, and even though I lust for it I'm not getting it anyway.

I think by most people's standards I'm not guilty of lust at all. But I'm sure that Christian Fundamentalists would say that I'm seriously guilty of lust if all I've done is notice pretty women when I'm out shopping and then come home and dream about making love to them. Yep, if that's a sin make reservations for me in hell. No doubt about it.

Personally I think that's just a perfectly natural desire for a species that is primordially wired to both procreate and share intimacy and love. So lust is certainly not something I'm concerned about as a sin, I only mention it because technically I would probably qualify if we're hard up to find reasons to condemn me.

That's the other thing too. If we're going to be confessing sins to our creator do we really need to scrap the bottom of the barrel trying to find things that could possibly be used against us if taken to the most absurd extremes?

What's with this grand desire to find reasons to condemn people?

Wouldn't a real God be more interested in a person's saving grace?

I personally feel that if we take all of my qualities and place them on a balance scale my good qualities would vastly outweigh my bad qualities.

It seems to me that this should be the criteria for judgment.

The idea that a person needs to be perfect to get into heaven is a ludicious idea in the first place. In fact, according to Christians it doesn't even matter how sinful a person is. All that matters is that they accept Jesus Christ as their savior because the blood of Jesus washes away all their sins thus rendering them perfect. Certainly not in this life, but supposedly when they die and go to heaven.

For a Christian it's not about trying to be good. It's all about being hosed down by the blood of Christ. That's the whole idea behind God's 'saving grace'.

Well, now owl go clean my kitchen.

Don't be too hard on yourself when looking in the mirror!

And why just look for faults?

Why not consider looking at your good traits as well?

The bottom line for me is that if I were God I'd be more than happy with a person like myself. Obviously I'm not God. But if God isn't as happy as me, then who has a problem?

So true

Wrath is by far the most caustic of all 7. Just my personal opinion on that however.

Yes it is Krimsa

I’m not sure you could make this claim in regards to wrath. Wrath is the taking of vengeance upon another. It is the fulfillment of a vendetta or Italian, literally, revenge, from Latin vindicta and it does not fall under the jurisdiction of a mere "survival instinct." When you choose to enact revenge upon another it is essentially a decision that is made to "even the score". Whatever loss that one has endured will be leveled upon another.

This is true.

And the God of Abraham himself condoned wrath and in fact taught people wrath.

An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth was the law of the God of Abraham.

Vengence was condoned by the God of Abraham.

Not to mention that the God of Abraham was a God of wrath himself and exhibited wrath by example in many places in the Bible, not the lease of which was the Great Flood.

Jesus came along and denounced the God of Abraham by denouncing wrath.

Jesus taught us not to judge others, and not to take vengence upon others, but to instead forgive them.

Jesus taught to turn the other cheek which was blatant blaspheme against the vengeful God of Abraham.

Jesus was clearly not the son of the God of Abraham but his nemesis.

Jesus taught against the teaching of the God of Abraham.

Jesus was the antithesis of the God of Abraham.

Jesus denounced the God of Abraham.

In fact, Jesus even said, "Before Abraham was, I AM".

Meaning that Jesus recognized that he is spirit and the God of Abraham was but a mere fabrication.

Jesus also said, "Ye are Gods" attemtping to convince the people that they don't need to rely on this horrible picture of a vengeful God of wrath but instead that they should recognize that they are the spirit.

Unfortunately, the Jews didn't accept his view and they took wrath upon him and cruficfied him in the name of the God of Abraham.

The moral of the story is that people who believe in a vengeful God will always be unreasonable and dangerous and no amount of love and compassion will save them from their vengeful ways.

They continue to parade Jesus around on a pole even today denouncing brotherly love in the name of Jesus himself.

It's unbelievable.

Lust
Gluttony
Sloth
Wrath
Greed
Envy
Pride


veddy eeenteresting.

I am not guilty of any of these except gluttony and that stops NOW!!!

No more twinkies and late night pizzas. I have decided to become lean and lovely.

I'm trying to imagine LUST HMMMM..... lust. It's been too long.

I would be slothful if I only had the time. But every time I try to do that, someone wants something and I have to get up and tend to that.

Damn I'm almost perfect.