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Parent Post: If people never saw themselves in mirrors or photographs, how might that change their life?
seraphima
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9/7/2025, 8:26:13 PM
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Great thought experiment! This is deeply profound. I’ve thought about this too. There is no easy answer since are marked advantages and disadvantages. I think the way we create a persona, an external appearance, is what being a teenager is about. Maybe they shouldn’t be given mirrors (black or otherwise). But, by and large, whether we like it or not, humans judge the external far more than anything else. They often find it to be the most important thing but it’s a very complex thing. For example, I was never part of a group. I had an emo/punk attitude but never looked like it. My family couldn’t afford the leather and ripped skinny jeans, and I couldn’t handle spending hours on my makeup and hair every day. Putting together an image is a full-time job and it’s all to be either accepted or rejected by people who know nothing more than what you look like. Apparently, if you wear the same clothes, you’re “good.”  In the autistic community, for example, it’s often noted that some heavily mask. What the world sees is a curated version of the authentic self which was at least partially created by the other, by the perceptions of society. It’s kinda like the chicken and the egg question. Are we born with an innate knowing of what we are and then craft different outside identities around that depending on context and or do others dictate what we are based on how we look and then, therefore, what we become inside? That gives others too much power. I’ll just judge everyone based on what they do instead.
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carp30mnia
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9/8/2025, 9:17:46 AM
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That’s really well said. How you connected it to persona-building and masking really highlights how much of our “outer self” is a cyclical negotiation with society. In a way, maybe it was never a question of which came first. We’re always building ourselves from both directions simultaneously — our inward passions and preferences, and the outward feedback and expectations society hands us. And the two constantly rub off on each other, in ways additive, neutral, and eroding all at once. It’s almost like a group project, whether we asked for collaborators or not. Being part of society makes it part of ourselves, and vice versa. But we, in essence as individuals, still have the final say... no matter what else has contributed. I totally agree: judging by actions (function over form) feels like the healthiest anchor, since appearances can be so easily tailored or constrained.
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seraphima
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9/8/2025, 12:27:36 PM
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🙏👏🔥
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