“The Allegory of the Cave” sheds light on the very aspect of life that is seldom pondered: Are we truly acting on our own, or are we but mere puppets in some twisted scheme? How often is it that we stop to think about why we are doing something? Usually one is more concerned with reaping the fruits of their actions rather than consider the reason that prompted him or her to do so.
Life seems to be centered on a set pattern or schedule. Continuity. We just “go with the flow,” just because. It’s easier that way. There’s less thinking involved— no need to get all worked up over something that isn’t disturbing our lives. It is that type of thinking which tightens the shackles that which holds one captive to the darkness, relinquishing any hope that is left of reaching the field of true vision.
To free one from that bondage, one must learn the truth. Yet, why do we not question our present reality to seek that truth?
The saying, “the truth hurts” comes into play in this case.
When the prisoner who manages to break from the bondage and makes his way outside the cave, the first thing he experiences is pain. Being so used to sitting in one position and being in the darkness, it is quite difficult and painful to move smoothly the stiff, weak muscles and transitioning from the darkness of the cave to sunlight.
The affective influence on the cognition pushes one away from things that will result in a painful outcome. If something is negative, one is more likely to rationalize it so that it becomes something positive, all to in order to avoid that pain. Therefore, we tend to shy away from the truth. We tend shy away from pain.
There was a period in my life where things weren’t working out as well as I wanted them to be. Each day was tantamount to one spent in frolicking the fiery embers of Gehenna. Eventually I began twisting that reality into something a bit more digestible. I started lying to myself, distorting what was and what was not. I believed it. Every single one of those lies. I held them close, repeating each like a mantra. I was shackled by them. To all those that tried to bring me back toward the truth— the harsh, painful reality— I retaliated with hostility.
It was not until I finally decided to stop running away and to face all that I have been trying to escape from that I was able to bring myself back to the field of true vision— reality. I clawed my way through those lies I’ve woven for myself, thread by thread.
Though my hands bled and bones ached, I was glad to know that that pain was real. Through that experience, I have lived through the view point of both the shackled prisoner and the one that was fortunate and unfortunate enough to escape.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Good piece. You focus mainly on what characterizes that path out of the cave, the effects the difficult journey has on one's psyche, ranging from discomfort to pain to outright agony. I wonder more and more lately how worth it all the cuts and bruises and blinded eyes are, whether the "truth hurts" too much, or enough, to make its expected or supposed fruits worth storm at see we have to cross to reach it, let alone know what to do with it.
ReplyDeleteUsually I'm asking myself this question more for rhetoric's sake, but not always. I do have a strong conviction that using one's logocentric brain too much and relying on analytical thinking is not always good or even productive for one's psyche--- not that I'm suggesting that we should be ignorant and unaware either, but rather that the Western mind has grown accustomed to "thinking" it can think it's way through any problem and solve it by imposing order. This has its value, but it also is significantly limited when it comes to deeper issues and questions that logic can't fully conceive or construe, such as feelings like love and fear or concepts like justice and identity.
In a nutshell, that's the Postmodern complaint (I venture into this territory because you're a Lit student and should be familiar): Logical institutionalization has done much for the progress of humanity but in its wake it's left the individual human as a tremendously complicated and marginalized being. Beyond the broader socio-political skein, our psychologies have grown more complex (which is why that word has a double-entendre, complex things give us a complex...), spiritual or ontological issues almost immediately deconstruct themselves, and ethics --whether individual or interpersonal, have become some of the most circuitous straits humanity has ever had to circumnavigate.
None of this means of course that the "what" or even the "why" of Platonic truth apropos human existence and experience isn't as vital and meaningful as it's always been, but the "how" is becoming more and more labyrinthine. Perhaps.
If you're interested in this topic, either the nature of cave-escpace pain or forms of working one's way through them a couple possible movie choices could include "The Wrestler", in which mental struggles prove to be far more formidable than the physical agony of his sport, "A Clockwork Orange", which merges both the mental and the physical pain what the broader cultural forces they are products of and metaphors for, and THX-1138, whose protagonist's malady sends him into an even more grueling escape plight. Let me know if you'd like to discuss any of these and great work here!
JM