Allegory of the Cave

So often in life we look at the moment we're in and wonder how this small fraction of a minute is important. Many people live from crisis to crisis barely hanging on to the last threads that dangle between those moments. What happens when a person takes a step back from their life and looks at it objectively (if that is even possible?). Are those the seconds that define our lives? Or those the moments that shape us? Those are questions that each of needs to ask.

Wikipedia sums up the plot of Plato's Allegory of the Cave like this:

Imagine prisoners, who have been chained since their childhood deep inside a cave: not only are their limbs immobilized by the chains; their heads are chained in one direction as well, so that their gaze is fixed on a wall.

Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along which statues of various animals, plants, and other things are carried by people. The statues cast shadows on the wall, and the prisoners watch these shadows. When one of the statue-carriers speaks, an echo against the wall causes the prisoners to believe that the words come from the shadows.

The prisoners engage in what appears to us to be a game: naming the shapes as they come by. This, however, is the only reality that they know, even though they are seeing merely shadows of images. They are thus conditioned to judge the quality of one another by their skill in quickly naming the shapes and dislike those who begin to play poorly.

Suppose a prisoner is released and compelled to stand up and turn around. At that moment his eyes will be blinded by the sunlight coming into the cave from its entrance, and the shapes passing will appear less real than their shadows.

The last object he would be able to see is the sun, which, in time, he would learn to see as that object which provides the seasons and the courses of the year, presides over all things in the visible region, and is in some way the cause of all these things that he has seen.

(This part of the allegory, incidentally, closely matches Plato's metaphor of the sun which occurs near the end of The Republic, Book VI.)[1]

Once enlightened, so to speak, the freed prisoner would not want to return to the cave to free "his fellow bondsmen," but would be compelled to do so. Another problem lies in the other prisoners not wanting to be freed: descending back into the cave would require that the freed prisoner's eyes adjust again, and for a time, he would be one of the ones identifying shapes on the wall. His eyes would be swamped by the darkness, and would take time to become acclimated. Therefore, he would not be able to identify shapes on the wall as well as the other prisoners, making it seem as if his being taken to the surface completely ruined his eyesight.

At what point will you take off the chains, at what point will you look at the sun Son behind you? Oh it he glows so bright, it he is blinding. Like a moth to the flame. In reality once you get a taste of what the light can offer there is no substitute, there is no other option.

Shall we prisoners no more? My prayer is that freedom reigns in us all, that it rains in this place.

What will you do with the moments you're given?