Mirror Song

Okay, as I started thinking about growing up and growing into myself last week when I posted the picture, I started to think about how I began to see myself. I remembered how John Green wrote in his novel Paper Towns that we should see people through windows, not mirrors. That others shouldn't be seen in the way we want to see them by reflections of ourselves, but as we see them, we should be getting a glimpse of who they are through a window.
That made me wonder, how should we see ourselves then? I supposed we should see ourselves through mirrors. We should look at other things and be able to pick up the things that reflect pieces of us in order to discover who really are. So that's how I began to see myself. When I watch a movie, or hear someone give a presentation I try to pick up on little things that make me smirk, or smile, or shake my head. Because those little things help me distinguish who I am.
For example, today in my Introduction to Campus Life course a guy gave a presentation on cheerleaders. The first thing he said was "my brother's a cheerleader and they're not...what you might think". My reaction to this was disgust. Okay, so I don't have a big problem with guy cheerleaders at all, but when the first thing you talk about is how guy cheerleaders aren't gay, and you can't even say the word "gay", I'm starting to think you don't quite believe this yourself. Also, why should this be such a big deal? Who cares about the sexual orientation of male cheerleaders? Then this guy has the gall to say "my brother took me to dinner with all the cheerleaders and they are some pretty hot chicks". I couldn't keep the disgust off of my face, some people in the room were laughing, but I was deeply appalled. This guy was horrible. He continued to talk about what cheerleaders do and made sure to say multiple times that the girls were "really hot chicks". When the presentation was over I didn't really feel like clapping. This was due to the fact I found his presentation to be extremely misogynistic. And this reaction helped me see that I am really against misogynistic pigs. To be honest, I knew that already, but it gave me solid proof.
To be honest, I've never really been a fan of cheerleaders either. Don't get me wrong, there are SOME exceptions, but for the most part I find them to be girls who are too consumed in beauty and little flips to notice anything bigger than a football game or what's new in those celebrity gossip magazines. I also see them to be really fake people. Some of them are actually smart girls who dumb themselves down to get attention. This is just not something I think women should be doing, especially after all the work our foremothers did to get equality for us in today's society. It is simply backwards.
So, yes, I did go on a little rant there, but the truth is, I'm glad I can see who I am through other people's actions and my reactions because the more I know about what I believe, the stronger my convictions become.