How much of who you are can be found in the mirror?

We can not see ourselves from the outside. Only from the inside. Our eyes only go out, not in. We look in a mirror to see what we look like. We look to other human beings to show us who we are as persons. Without this knowledge, perhaps we can not know enough about ourselves to even know how we feel. We can not, therefore, even know when we are happy.

Some people do not believe you need a mirror in order to know enough about yourself to be happy. They think a person is whole and complete and knows what he or she needs to know in order to be happy. If you detach yourself from satisfying a desire to know if you please others, then what other people think doesn’t matter. Only your own idea of yourself matters.

Another aspect of this question has to do with figuring out who you are. Many people think they don’t know who they are, and they must set out to find themselves. When they do this, I believe, they are seeking mirrors in the world that provide reflections in a wide variety of situations. In the end, they figure out which actualizable reflection they like the best.

I believe that we already have seen ourselves in enough mirrors that we know who we are before we set out on such quests. I think others would say the mirrors don’t help. But I don’t know. So I’m asking this question. What information can you get looking in a (metaphorial) mirror, and is using a mirror the only way you can get that information? Is that information crucial to your identity?