Please note, RM describes the setting of these lyrics as Ttukseom. But for the purpose of my interpretation, I establish a link with the short film and take the reader for a trip down the ‘maze of mirrors,’ winding their way around the ‘regular’ and ‘reciprocal’ ones. This is just my way of analyzing the lyrics for it’s what I connected to on a personal level.
When the tip of the finger runs down a mirror, that tiny gap between the ‘self’ and the ‘reflection’ mirrors the voids of staring into your soul. The acceptance of the ‘flipped image’ is only the first dip into deception.
The new sense of direction alters our perspectives, yet we embrace it as the only way to see and reflect on ourselves on a daily. As the tips touch and yet not meet, we are trapped in the limits of their inability to. The self can never fully embrace its reflection, ironically we claim otherwise. But it’s the view of the reciprocal mirror (one-way mirror), where the tips touch and we focus on the ‘lighted up’ image, both head-on (the normal way) and from the darkness (the other side).
From an external perspective, we all tend to agree we are pawns to a grandiose chessboard, characters for the world’s stage. We acknowledge the roles we play. Yet we do very little to acknowledge ourselves beyond that role. Absorbed by the monotony to go on, we spend very little time indulging in contemplative thoughts. The reason we keep going on, until it suddenly hits us and we feel our ‘wings’ fading away, our ambition to fly reducing to questioning our reasons to. This is the ‘void’ we fail to acknowledge each time we see our reflection, that we’ve failed to recognize its true form. The void drives us to slip into the darkness, enough to engulf us completely. Enough for us to begin hating ourselves each time we picture our reflection.
But that’s when we need to trace our steps to the other side of the mirrors, to view the world from where you do not see the reflection, but reflect upon yourself as you look into the ‘lighted up’ side. Reflection, speaks of the visual we see from the darkroom, the introspective route of visibility where one places themselves out of the narrative and views the world from a hidden sanctuary. The lyrics define this as a physical place but figuratively refer to a similar mental safe haven too.
It’s that view from the darkness that we grow to accept as our hideout, the seemingly gloomy place can be a better breeding ground for thoughts. It’s where we learn to accept, embrace and even befriend our fears. Reflection does an excellent job at highlighting the comparative ideology that to be in a place of light and dark are not the deciding factors of where you stand. The light is what we seek, to caress ourselves as the fingers trace our reflection but grow to learn to love it too. Yet perceiving a continued living in the light will bring us to that point is a distorted perspective too. The dark is not synonymous with dull, rather it is the closest acknowledgment of the concealed realities, not visible to the naked eye in the light. Stepping into the sanctuary is the only way to visualize everything alternatively.
Yet the darkness possesses the ability to consume us whole and make us conclude we are detached from the world. It establishes the power to make us accept we are alone and trapped in it without the ability to break free. Reflection quite cleverly depicts a sense of cognizance of what the dark is capable of doing but also urges us to employ this momentary stay to overcome the communication gap with ourselves.
Perhaps if one were, to sum up, the point we are encouraged to ponder upon, it is the need for coexistence. Coexistence with our fears. Coexistence with the parts we despise of ourselves. Coexistence of the light and dark too, to not choose to live in merely one but to understand the reason to thrive in both, using each in its own way.
In the closing visual of the short film, RM seeks to speak to the ‘self,’ presenting in an underlying form that self-reflection is the driver of this urge itself. Bridging that gap has been catalyzed by introspective thoughts and doing so is defined as the form of learning to love oneself, alternatively accept all aspects of the reality and embrace living with them. Moving away from the sense of being trapped in despair and the way of viewing one's status as minuscule in the world, the aim is to learn to live as a part of it. All this, while understanding, no matter what fate ties you into, it’s not chaining you down to any boundaries.
This analytical piece is a subjective interpretation of the actual work (bound to have a one-dimensional perspective) and claims to reflect nothing directly or indirectly mentioned in the original lyrics.
