The face in the mirror

It's one thing to be strangers in the night, but being a stranger to ourselves is a peculiarly human delusion.

People have been searching for themselves for eons, but I suspect the stampede didn't begin until they had climbed high enough up Maslow's Hierarchy of needs to realize there was more to life than being. And being human, the instinct to follow the herd, to try to control anything and everything controllable, and force others to follow in their footsteps, sent them raging against nature because it was more acceptable than raging against god.

A little money, a little more imagination and a streak of cruelty built upon the frustration of unhappy souls, allowed them the freedom to consider molding the human race, or that part of it they could grasp, into something that fed their egos and lifted them up closer to god status.

Civilization was born. Enlightenment. Illumination, Refinement. Breeding. And the logical place to begin with was small children, those apparently blank beings just waiting to be brought to fruition.  Using those terms humans love, they were housebroken, saddle broken, trained and taught that trusting their own senses, tastes, predilections, desires and yearnings was unreliable. And having been severed from themselves, they were reprogrammed to fit the church, society, or whatever great movement of the day was currently in vogue.

If the job was considered well done, many of them would never again seek their old selves, or wonder who they were.

Others would wonder what was behind that strange indiscernible feeling that crept upon them in the middle of the night and on gray cold days.

The face in the mirror with the haunting eyes looking out, calls to someone many of us have never met.

Only a few escape this decapitation of body from soul by the time they go to school.