Hey. I am writing a real post now, one I've been working on for a while. This is going to be comparing, in a perhaps previously not considered way, mirrors and windows; irony and metaphor; and lies and longing.

This post is really just sharing some thoughts that were sparked from reading a book my brother actually got for Christmas, called The King in the Window. It was set in Paris, about an American guy living there, lonely and kind of depressed in the rainy, cold winter. It kinda resonated with me. But it is actually a believable, weird fantasy about an ancient war between Mirrors, or the Master of Mirrors, more accurately, and the King in the Window over people's souls. It is really a kids book, preposterous and silly, but I guess I am always looking for spiritual deep stuff...

Have you ever wondered in a passing, bored thought, (you know what I'm talking about, those ones that are really random and only make sense to you, But are fascinating nonetheless, and you never voice them or think of them again, you just use them as a kind of pastime) at the difference between irony and sarcasm? What about the difference between a simile and a metaphor? Have you ever thought of what a mirror has in common with irony, and what a window has in common with metaphor? Well, I hadn't either, not even in one of my bored thoughts. Well, let me give you 'a look through the window of my soul' if you will, and perhaps you will catch a glimpse what I'm talking about. The Master of Mirrors stole people's souls as they looked into mirrors in everyday life. When you look into a mirror, everything is reversed. When you say something sarcastic, you are saying the reverse of a truth; and when you add time, it is ironic. For example, if I said, "You just have your head in the clouds" and then in a few years you got your pilots license and really did have your head in the clouds, that would be ironic. These are the medium of mirrors - reversed truth, irony and sarcasm. Irony doesn't have much to do with wisdom, only wit. Now, for the medium of windows. A simile is when you say one thing IS another. A metaphor is when you just describe something using the example of something else. For instance, if I said there is a confused monkey sitting at this computer, it would be a metaphor, but if I said you looked like a confused monkey, it would be a simile. I know that is just a humorous metaphor, but when you hear a real one, somehow it makes you (or at least me...) think of, well, something more. It isn't flat, like sarcasm, but descriptive while making your mind do something it hasn't before. A metaphor is true rhetoric, and metaphors can take true wisdom, not simply a wit.

Now. What do windows and mirrors and all this stuff really have to do with souls? Well, think for a minute of sometime when you looked through a window, and were truly longing for something. Maybe you've looked through a window, not really seeing what was on the other side... I know I've spent time longing for things while I was looking out a window, though they weren't really touchable things. A window shows multiple views. You can see your reflection, or you can look beyond that to see the world; a beautiful meadow, a budding tree, snow falling, people going about their lives. You see yourself...But somehow, you see, more. And when you look at a mirror, all you see is a harsh, true, but reversed and flat image of yourself. The book said something that is still floating around in my mind, like a fragrance that brings back indescribable memories. It said that longing is what keeps your soul alive. It's what keeps a fire inside of you, a spark in your eyes, and keeps you getting out of bed every morning. When you look at a mirror for too long, your fire goes out, your longing for...more, goes away, swallowed by your self. At least, that's what happened in the book...
(This is what I think about on long walks by myself in the cold on vacation.)

Anyway I thought it was interesting, since I am a philologist, after all. I don't feel that I explained that adequately, because the book was really the profound thing, not my own thoughts. And it doesn't always work out so well when I try to communicate even my thoughts, anyway... Ah well. Tell me if any of that made sense, or if it was just ignatum ad ignatius...