First off I'd like to thank the people that have become followers of my blog, and keeping up with the posts, and I apologize that I haven't updated in a little while. With the new semester starting I've had free-time at weird points in the day. This time I'm going to take a break from talking about politics and focus on philosophy; particularly the writings of Socrates and Plato.
The first work that I'd like to focus on is Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," which is actually a metaphor all in itself. Try to picture a dark cave, where men are chained up and can not move at all. These men are surrounded by fire both in front of and behind them, and beyond the fire at their backs is a path where free men can walk. On the other side of the fire in front of them are their shadows. The chains symbolize the fact that these men are held back by their practices of unethical and devious actions and thoughts. These thoughts may be malicious or sensual desires that they have trouble resisting. Basically the message that he's trying to get across here is the fact that when people give into temptation and stray from good, they are chained to their dark beliefs in a cave of darkness, and until they get out of that cave they will not be able to see the light, both literally and metaphorically.
Once the chained individuals are finally able to overcome this darkness and break through to the light, they are temporarily blinded by it, because they are so used to the darkness, and the light is such a different viewpoint for them. Picture yourself say, being a drug addict, and then you finally overcome that addiction and you're seeing the world from a sober view and mindset all in one day. That would be a huge change for you and that essentially is what these men in the cave are going through.
Too often in life we find ourselves trapped in a deep dark part of ourselves that we may not even understand or know where it's coming from; we just know that it's there. It's like a slump that we know we have a strong desire to get out of, but we just don't know the way out. At least not right away. We are those people chained in the cave. We are chained to our material possessions, our addictions, our habits, our stray thoughts, our impure thoughts. When we finally break free of those chains that are holding us back, we see the light, but in the beginning it is very bright, often blinding, and we get scared. What I'm proposing to you is that you build up all the courage that you can, within yourself, and you walk into that light and open your eyes and you will see that the difficult journey was worth the destination all along.
