The Human in the Mirror

We find ourselves in the 16th century. It is spring. Anne is not even twenty years old and sees the world through different eyes than the people around her. She defies social conventions, speaks her mind, and is sentenced to death by burning at the stake.

When Anne steps out of the stinking prison on the day of her execution, she breathes the fresh air deeply and delights in the cheerful chirping of the birds.

It calmed Anne to see how indifferent the elements were to her fate. The course of the world was not confined to her or her story; there was a mighty, majestic force that pressed on without pause. Amid this abundance she was no more than a flower crushed beneath the hoof of a cow; if she were destroyed, another Anne would take her place; she counted firmly on the lavish riches of the earth.

Anne is a fictional character from the book Die Frau im Spiegel by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt.

Many people demonize us as a species, because „we“ cause so much harm in the world: wars, environmental destruction, the exploitation of other people and of animals … Even more, „we“ demonize „the others“: the elites, industry, the media, the activists, the meat-eaters, the do-gooders …

In the end, all this resentment does not change much about our own behavior, let alone that of others. We carry on just as before, only now with a guilty conscience. Meanwhile, life showers us with gifts every day. Anne recognized this despite her dramatic situation.

Our organs function without our ever appreciating it. We only notice them once they stop doing their job. We treat ourselves like machines, stuff ourselves full of toxins, subject ourselves to every kind of stress, and yet our lungs give us fresh oxygen, our gut digests, our kidneys detoxify us – in every second of our lives.

Nature too, where it still exists, showers us with its lavish abundance. The lemon tree in the garden „produces“ so many fruits that my housemates and I could never eat them all. Most fall to the ground and return to the cycle of eternal passing and becoming. All too often we tear edible wild plants out of the soil as weeds, simply because we were never taught otherwise. Life-giving rain cannot reach the plants because the soils are sealed over with concrete, or the soils have been leached out by industrial agriculture and can no longer supply the plants with nutrients.

To be a witness to how a man-made yet overpowering system – large corporations and governments – destroys entire cycles of nature for all living beings leaves behind a feeling of powerlessness and resentment. The question of how the destruction wrought by the megamachine can be stopped drives some people to search for solutions, while others fend off those very solutions – perhaps out of an unconscious fear of having to change their own habits or admit their own share of responsibility.

Logic says that changes to the greater whole only happen when the individual parts behave differently. And yet most people underestimate this very logic, overlook it, or refuse to accept it as true.

Michael Jackson expressed this simple message powerfully in his song „Man in the mirror“. The images in the official video – starving children, armed soldiers, bombs and homeless people – combined with the lyrics touch me and motivate me again and again to contribute my small part to a more humane society in harmony with our nature – within and without. Above all by continually learning, by looking – at the suffering and at the beauty – and by expanding my worldview again and again.

The woman in the mirror and the man in the mirror. Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt and Michael Jackson remind us that we ourselves help steer the megamachine – in one direction or the other.

The system is driven by the great decisions of a few on the world stage – and just as much by all the small decisions of every person in their everyday life.

We can debate forever about what good it does, on top of raising awareness of the wrongs, to question and change our own behavior … or we can simply do it: perceive homeless people as human beings with whom we share the same streets, donate to soup kitchens, keep lonely people company, reduce our own consumption, boycott mega-corporations, truly listen to one another and learn to understand each other, plant trees, grow our own fruit and vegetables, build water-retention landscapes …