Plato and the Collider

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I recede into silence when whatever trial I am currently, by life's hand, enduring... becomes too much. I stop communicating with even the closest of friends, except for those stubborn few who call me despite my reticence to speak with them. As recently as a few weeks ago, that ready response to hard times didn't bring with it any sort of implied connotations. Then I read Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

The Republic, Book VII (Allegory of the Cave)

And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:—Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

I carved out this little space for myself years ago, you see, this cave. A place where I could retreat when things, didn't matter what, began to spiral out of emotional control. These descents I make into silence, these withdrawals from intimates and agates, are inclusive of world news and events.

I plod out of my cave expecting to find the world unchanged each and every time. Ah, but we humans, we never quite can seem to stand still. My most recent return to enlightenment revealed this...



I can't help but wonder after watching this series, if I didn't have the right of it by remaining stubbornly ignorant of the world's goings-on. (Mind you, the following is merely my opinion.) I'm not so much disturbed by man's need for enlightenment, his need to quest, to delve into the unknown and return from his travels more knowledgeable for having made them. I'm disturbed by those who refuse to see that the answers to some mysteries have already been defined.

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