Mirror, Mirror

Has this happened before to anyone else?

 A few minutes ago, I was clicking through my facebook photographs due to a mixture of narcissism and the need to find a profile picture for the google-whatever account I had had to set up to create this blog.

While I was doing this the weirdest thing happened. When one photo popped up, I didn't recognize myself.  And it wasn't like the photo was from seven years ago or my hair was dyed blue or something and I was thinking about how different I used to look. No, I looked exactly like me, I just saw myself as a stranger: I absentmindedly wondered what I was like to be around, what my deepest thoughts and desires were, whether I would like me if I knew me.  It was like I had walked in on my self-image undressing or something.

The very same thing has happened with longtime friends as they've grown older; looking at them, suddenly their faces break the mold of the familiar, and I glimpse for a moment not who I think they are, but what they really look like. It makes me wonder how much I really know them, to what extent I've mentally categorized, simplified their being down to a few idiosyncrasies and a certain manner of speaking.

How much of the world that we live in is the expected, the habitual, pasting itself over the real, the actual? Apparently, there's a good chance that we don't even see true colors anymore.  These moments of clairvoyance, in which we are permitted to see ourselves and others without the subconscious filter of our own opinions and expectations, don't come nearly often enough.