Kindness

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If you understand other-selves to be mirrors into the self, why would the self lack kindness with itself? Or rather, what does it say about the self for the self to lack kindness towards itself?

Yes, kindness and the mirroring effect is an interesting discussion.

If others are unkind towards you, then does that mean this unkindness is coming from inside you and just reflected back? I did a lot of testing regarding this and I came to the conclusion that it is more complex than that.

I think it is a sign of rejection of your sharing. If you output only loving-kindness and unkindness is mirrored back, then it is a rejection of your offering.

But as with any mirroring, it is always good to look inside and see if that is indeed something inside you that is being reflected or if it is just a simple rejection. It's always good to ask ourselves that question.

I think one thing to remember about the mirroring effect is that unless someone is very balanced in their personality they will be offering a distorted reflection. A lot of the time the mirroring effect is more of a funhouse mirror effect.

Kindness and unkindness are, at some level, essentially just different expressions of the same thing. If you are kind to someone and they reflect back unkindness it could just be that they are more biased towards unkindness in general. This also gives you an opportunity to strengthen your own mental discipline. If you are kind to someone and they are unkind back, does that give you carte blanche to respond with unkindness of your own as you are just mirroring their energy? I think the more balanced approach would be to assess this energy within yourself and deliberately choose which "polarity" of that kind/unkind energy you want to reflect back.

If someone is hateful towards you and you reflect that hatred back to them, you are providing them with the mirroring effect, but is that the positive path? Ideally, the positively oriented individual would reflect back love in this situation.

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As for the idea of our logos being biased towards kindness, I agree with Louisabell that this can be seen in the history and development of our species. Humans are by necessity a social species. We would not have come this far as solitary creatures, we rely on each other for quite a lot. Just think of how helpless a baby is at birth, some species are able to walk and fend for themselves right away whereas a human baby requires constant attention for it's first couple of years of life.

The anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by one of her students what the first sign of civilization was and rather than mentioning the use of tools or pottery, etc. she replied that the first sign of civilization was a fossil of a femur that was broken and mended. It shows that the social group this individual was a part of was willing to tend to them, bring them food, etc. rather than abandon them even though it would have been a lot easier and probably less dangerous for the rest of them.

Anyhow, those are just some of my thoughts.