Tom9999
I've suffered enough.
- Aug 27, 2019
- 124
The philosopher Plato created his "Allegory of the Cave". Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia page on it:
"Plato has Socrates describe a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality.
Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not reality at all, for he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the manufactured reality that is the shadows seen by the prisoners. The inmates of this place do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life. The prisoners manage to break their bonds one day, and discover that their reality was not what they thought it was. They discovered the sun, which Plato uses as an analogy for the fire that man cannot see behind."
You can also apply this allegory to life and society.
Simply put, society encourages and provides support for people to follow a standard path of going to school, making friends, getting an education, starting a career and a family, conceiving and raising children, being active in the community, then eventually retiring and spending a decade or two enjoying grandchildren, traveling, taking on hobbies, and whatnot, until death arrives.
You can take this to be the cave most people see life as.
It's safe to say that most successful people who were taught growing up how to correctly dance with the shadows, are therefore able to have a rich and long life that includes a flourishing career, plenty of money, a big circle of friends, loving spouse and children, recognition and respect from society, the means and freedom to live as they please - they don't have the urge, much less the time, to explore outside the cave, because they are experiencing meaning, fulfillment, purpose, and joy while inside it, dancing successfully, and sometimes very elegantly, with all the shadows.
But what happens if your upbringing renders you unable to successfully take part in all that? What if your upbringing doesn't give you the skills and abilities to successfully dance with the shadows in the cave of society?
Well, you're going to have to go outside the cave in order to get a good look at just how the shadows are dancing, figure out what you're doing wrong, correct it, and return to the cave to try again.
The only thing is... once you've seen that life is about creating meaning, and all the shadows are built on accepting meaning created by others, it's hard to go back in. You've seen the truth - life is intrinsically meaningless, it is we ourselves who must create that meaning - and it then is very very difficult to forget that and go back to accepting the conventions of society at face value again.
Instead, you are almost forced to create your own meaning for it all. This is not only an immense task, it's a curse.
Philip J. Kain writes in his paper "Nietzche, Truth, and the Horror of Existence":
"We cannot climb out of the cave and look directly at the truth. It would probably kill us. There is a reason why we are down in the cave with our backs to the truth. All that advice that circulates at the bottom of the cave, that we should stay there, that it is lunacy to try to get out, is damned good advice. It is true that the shadows at the bottom of the cave are illusions, distortions, lies. But it is not true that the shadows lock us into a prison. They keep out the horror. They preserve life. Life exists, only exists, at the bottom of the cave."
But if we are taught wrong how to dance with the shadows, then we must either climb out and look directly so we can correct ourselves, or remain forever with the shadows repeatedly passing us by. The intelligent among us choose to climb out and, much to our detriment, look closely at it all.
This is the real curse of childhood abuse. It kicks us out of the cave, and quite often we do not, despite much hard work, succeed at returning and dancing with the shadows, like everyone else.
Instead, we remain outside, helplessly staring at the truth day after day, eventually ending up in places such as this.
"Plato has Socrates describe a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality.
Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not reality at all, for he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the manufactured reality that is the shadows seen by the prisoners. The inmates of this place do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life. The prisoners manage to break their bonds one day, and discover that their reality was not what they thought it was. They discovered the sun, which Plato uses as an analogy for the fire that man cannot see behind."
You can also apply this allegory to life and society.
Simply put, society encourages and provides support for people to follow a standard path of going to school, making friends, getting an education, starting a career and a family, conceiving and raising children, being active in the community, then eventually retiring and spending a decade or two enjoying grandchildren, traveling, taking on hobbies, and whatnot, until death arrives.
You can take this to be the cave most people see life as.
It's safe to say that most successful people who were taught growing up how to correctly dance with the shadows, are therefore able to have a rich and long life that includes a flourishing career, plenty of money, a big circle of friends, loving spouse and children, recognition and respect from society, the means and freedom to live as they please - they don't have the urge, much less the time, to explore outside the cave, because they are experiencing meaning, fulfillment, purpose, and joy while inside it, dancing successfully, and sometimes very elegantly, with all the shadows.
But what happens if your upbringing renders you unable to successfully take part in all that? What if your upbringing doesn't give you the skills and abilities to successfully dance with the shadows in the cave of society?
Well, you're going to have to go outside the cave in order to get a good look at just how the shadows are dancing, figure out what you're doing wrong, correct it, and return to the cave to try again.
The only thing is... once you've seen that life is about creating meaning, and all the shadows are built on accepting meaning created by others, it's hard to go back in. You've seen the truth - life is intrinsically meaningless, it is we ourselves who must create that meaning - and it then is very very difficult to forget that and go back to accepting the conventions of society at face value again.
Instead, you are almost forced to create your own meaning for it all. This is not only an immense task, it's a curse.
Philip J. Kain writes in his paper "Nietzche, Truth, and the Horror of Existence":
"We cannot climb out of the cave and look directly at the truth. It would probably kill us. There is a reason why we are down in the cave with our backs to the truth. All that advice that circulates at the bottom of the cave, that we should stay there, that it is lunacy to try to get out, is damned good advice. It is true that the shadows at the bottom of the cave are illusions, distortions, lies. But it is not true that the shadows lock us into a prison. They keep out the horror. They preserve life. Life exists, only exists, at the bottom of the cave."
But if we are taught wrong how to dance with the shadows, then we must either climb out and look directly so we can correct ourselves, or remain forever with the shadows repeatedly passing us by. The intelligent among us choose to climb out and, much to our detriment, look closely at it all.
This is the real curse of childhood abuse. It kicks us out of the cave, and quite often we do not, despite much hard work, succeed at returning and dancing with the shadows, like everyone else.
Instead, we remain outside, helplessly staring at the truth day after day, eventually ending up in places such as this.
