Stranger in the Mirror!

Are you one of those who think that their peers age a lot faster than them? Then you belong to the majority of world’s population. It is the effect of a hedonistic attitude that nestles deep inside every one of us. Even the spiritually inclined people nurse a hedonistic approach to life. They do not admit it openly because they think that it is immoral to be pleasure seekers. Ethical hedonism as propounded by Aristippus of Cyrene is in simplified terms a concept that states that all people have the right to do everything in their power to achieve the greatest possible pleasure to them on condition that their actions do not infringe on the similar rights of others. It is the subconscious orientation to pleasure that gets reflected in a man’s desire to fight aging. The most predominant manifestation of this orientation is his belief that he looks much younger than his peers! We cheer up instantly when someone remarks that we hardly look our age! We spend a fortune on materials that promise to keep us young, fair and lovely!

A couple of weeks back, I received a Forward in my mail which I want to share with you. It goes like this:

My name is Meena. I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist. I noticed his BDS degree on the wall, which bore his full name.

Suddenly, I remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name who had been in my high school class some 30-odd years ago.

Could he be the same guy that I had a secret crush on, way back then?

Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face was way too old to have been my classmate.

After he examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended St Mary's high school.

"Yes. yes, I did.' he gleamed with pride.

"When did you graduate?" I asked.

He answered, "In 1984. Why do you ask?"

"You were in my class!!!!", I told him in an excited voice.

He looked at me closely.

Then, that ugly, old, bald, wrinkle-faced, decrepit, nincompoop, asked,

"What did you teach and what class"?

This is what I was telling you about in the beginning. The secret desire of every human being to look his youthful best is nothing new. This phenomenon extends from our mythological tales to the love triangles of modern youth. The story of Yayathi’s swapping the wrinkles of his old age with the well chiseled youthful features of his son Puru is known to everyone. Even the god men of today lay as much emphasis on their spiritual repertoire as on putting up fancy appearances to attract people. They don crazy head gears and apparels to add substance to what little substance they may really have!

The most indisputable fact is the time we spend in front of a mirror. I once chanced upon an article that reeled out a lot of unusual statistics. The one that stunned me most was the mention of an average human being spending 7 years of his life in front of a mirror! It only goes to show that all of us without exception love what we see of ourselves in the mirror irrespective of which stage of our life we are in. When I stand in front of a mirror, I cannot help wondering how is that I look exactly the same as I did twenty years back. I keep wondering this way until some cousin of mine tells me that I look exactly the same as my grandpa did on his 80^th birthday! He further goes on to enquire if I have stopped all physical activity to look so old adding ‘Look at me, I am 70 but no one will say that I am a day older than 50!’ And he is the one that we all call as the Pithamaha of the family!

The other day I was reading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray for the umpteenth time. No other novel fascinates me as much as this masterpiece of Oscar Wilde. Dorian Gray is so obsessed with the hedonistic way of life that he wants to retain his beauty and youthful look for ever. He goes to the extent of pledging his soul in order that an oil portrait of his bears all the effect of his aging so that he can remain young and beautiful for eternity. The picture gets more and more hideous with every act of vice and debauchery of Dorian Gray! I have no intention to discuss the full story here but only a thought that occurs to me.

If we have a mirror that shows our true picture mauled by all our sins and wrongdoing, will it not serve us as a medium to monitor the quality of life from time to time with possibilities of corrective action so that our image is not too much at variance with what we are? We have gadgets to monitor all our health parameters. It is time that we have a gadget like a mirror that shows how good or bad the moral content of our life has been. It will be good to see a true image of ourselves in such a mirror rather than a stranger who even we cannot recognize!

Stranger in the Mirror!