The man and the mirror: A reflection
Resilience and Joy
Spoken rendition of “The man and the mirror”.
Themes
Having the “weight of the world” on your shoulders is a trope about burdens placed on us without our asking. It is talked about as something that we should not have to carry, or as if it is a mistake that difficulty comes in life. But holding and learning to carry difficulty is part of the human story. Certainly, some have been given a hand that is more difficult than others, and I hope as a society or as friends we work to support anyone whose burdens are too big to carry on their own, but how to carry a burden is not what this poem explores.
The complaint of the poet is not that there is a weight to carry. In fact, there is acknowledgment that difficulty has given them the opportunity to build a resilient strength. Their complaint is different and twofold. They are living in the shadow that this weight casts and they feel the resulting cold because of it. There is a quest for joy among the pain in the world.
Discovering that joy required the poet take action through the story of the mirror. We do not hear how they come across this mirror, but I imagine they had to reflect on their problem and their desire for something different, then face the situation with a level of acceptance that could lead to a creative solution. This self-reflection leads to a search for a mirror, then a positioning of the mirror so that the light was reflected in a way where it was accessible, followed by walking to the place where the light was reflected. Emerging from the shadow was not a passive process.
While the shadow problem was now fixed, reflected light is not a source of much warmth. The solution to the cold comes as a byproduct, a natural progression that was set in motion by the action the subject took. He found a way to step into the light, and then the weight stepped down to block the new reflection, as if its main purpose had not been to weigh this person down, but to keep them in shadow. The weight steps down, and only then is the individual warmed through direct access to the sun’s rays.
Finally, we learn a lesson in the last stanza that is simple but profound, and one that I must learn repeatedly. We are all handed situations in life that act like a weight, but how often do we begin to identify with them? How often do difficult situations offer a solution which we refuse, or which we accept for a while then turn away from, inviting the weight back onto our shoulder all the while bemoaning the fact that we have to deal with the issue? What if we leave the burden behind when it truly is no longer on our shoulders? This takes a non-trivial amount of reflection to identify, but I would venture to say that if we are honest with ourselves, we see that many of the problems we have were problems at one point but are no longer truly problems except in our patterns of thinking.
Process
The purpose of this newsletter is to be a personal creative outlet and to inspire others who are looking to find space in their lives to be creative among other commitments that require most of their time. Out of this hope, the process part of this Reflection is going to look at a broader view of fitting a creative part of life into a life with other commitments, instead of exploring the process that surrounded this specific poem.
In many ways, I have been fortunate. Two years post college, I was beginning to realize the career I had entered was not enjoyable in the way I had expected it to be, I had just had a baby and felt I needed to make more money, and I wanted to travel less so I could be with my family more often. My timing for a career change wasn’t great from a societal standpoint, as it was mid-2008 during the economic crisis. Most companies were tightening their belts or laying off employees, and while there was risk of that happening at my current employer, it was unlikely. Something, perhaps naivety, drove me to pursue a change and through two people I had met because of my wife, I secured an interview and ended up in a new job in October 2008.
After fifteen years, I find myself in a career that offers personal satisfaction and still holds potential for growth and development, along with good pay and benefits at a company that genuinely cares for its employees. Along the way, my wife and I owned a small business with high hopes but set that aside five years ago. After ending that venture, I found myself with some time and a creative itch, and simultaneously found poetry during a series of difficult events which over a few years led to this newsletter.
One thing I am discovering is there are periods where time seems to be unavailable even with the best of intentions. To continue on in a career, care for one's physical and mental health, get enough rest and grow relationships does mean that sometimes the creative work takes a backseat. That is not an excuse to not get to work or to not prioritize the art, but just a reality that there are days where my intended 30 minutes of poetry writing does not happen, or my time to sit and craft a reflection seems to disappear. That is what occurred with the reflection you are currently reading.
My intent with the “Reflection” newsletter has been to have it posted within a week of publishing the poem, and up to this latest one, I have done that. But the past few weeks I was faced with a demanding work schedule, travel, poor sleep and waning energy, so I decided to let go of that intent and take the time that this essay needed. While I’m a stickler for quality (whatever that means…time to revisit Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance), and believe that punctuality and resilience are important, there are times other traits need to take precedence. Allowing myself to set aside the Reflection writing in favor of additional energy for my career, rest, and writing new poems is what I needed. The consequence was publishing this reflection later then I planned, but the process felt good and the result was still of quality. I’m learning that pursuing creativity is life giving, and while there are times in this stage of life that I will not be able to give as much as I would like to the creative process, that is not a reason to not pursue it. It is every reason to pursue a life of creativity.
I’m not going to dive much into the process of writing this specific poem, but here are a few snapshots from my writing notebook. The journaling around the start of the poem does not tie specifically to the outcome of the poem and I do not recall the specifics of how that shift happened, but that’s how the poems I love seem to emerge. I need to declare a starting point and forward direction to determine where I want to go, but so often the poem goes in a direction of its own.
Poverty, abuse, depression and manipulation are real and surely have impacted most people at some time. I truly am not dismissing the difficulties in our lives that we face. However, I see this as an empowering poem that shares the tale that we have an expansive freedom where we can embrace what we have, and if we look carefully at each moment, there are fewer problems to find then we often believe.
May you find your mirror.
Brian
If you missed the “A Poem” post of The man and the mirror, I hope you will read and enjoy! You can find it here.
Astute observation of the complexities that go into the creative process. There is always more there than is what is on the page even if the poet/writer doesn’t know what it is.
Go Brian♥️