Fly on the Wall

I have a secret.

I read dead people.

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Their books I mean.  It's a dangerous habit though.  You know why?  Because, in doing so, you just might learn something.  Such as this:

Around 380 BC the Greek philosopher Plato, student of Socrates, wrote a book called, The Republic.  It is considered to be one of the great works of Western Philosophy.  Worth the time to read.  Seriously.



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The book includes one of the most tragic stories every written (in my opinion) - "The Allegory of the Cave".    It is written in the context of a dialogue between Socrates, Plato's teacher, and Glaucon, Plato's brother. (See, it is worth reading if only to hear such great names!!)  The allegory is told by Socrates, in which he tales the tale of a group of captives.  These captives have lived their entire lives chained in a cave, facing a blank wall. There is a fire lit behind them and the chained people have spent their entire lives watching the shadows on the blank wall, cast by figures passing in front of the fire.  They see only shadows, and hear only echoes. 

Having never seen or known anything else, the shadows and echoes are as close as the prisoners have ever come to viewing reality.   Insofar as they even believe that the shadows and echoes ARE reality to its full extent.  They have a small world, which their mind is completely able to wrap around, and they think they fully understand reality. 

 

Socrates then explains how a philosopher (literally: "one who seeks/loves/has knowledge and wisdom" or "one who thinks") is akin to a prisoner who has been freed from the cave and is able to realize the extent of his previous ignorance.  What he once thought was the fullness of truth, he now recognizes as, literally, only shadows and echoes of truth. 

(Predictably, the most tragic part of the story follows later - when the freed prisoner goes back to other captives and tries to free them.  They shun him, ridicule him and refuse to believe him. They are too comfortable in the belief that shadows and echoes are the full extent of truth that they a) can't wrap their mind around the idea that there might be more and, b) hate the freed prisoner for trying to push them onwards toward the truth.)

This story haunts me.  I feel it loom over my shoulder, like a dark stranger following me down the street.  What do I think that I know, which in reality is just shadows and echoes and not true knowledge?  And the real tragedy is that I can't answer that, I can't know what I don't know.  You know?  (Sorry, couldn't resist the redundancy.)  



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Such is the paradox of education and knowledge.  The more you learn, the more you realize that you don't know.  Education - and by that I mean truly learning - is the key to discovering your own ignorance.  You think you have a handle on the world, and then....BAM you learn something that opens your eyes to a whole realm that up to now you never even imagined existed.   

Back to the point:  Any given moment I can look back at myself in the past - last week, last year, 10 years ago - and see clearly how far I have come.  And I can say to myself, "Past Self, you really thought you had your act together.  You really thought you knew something.  But hindsight makes ignorance glaringly obvious.  Clearly, Past Self, you were just chasing shadows and echos."  

I can tell myself that, and I do (though maybe not in those exact words) but I know that I am still chained to the wall of ignorance and my "Future Self" is going to look back on me in this moment and say the exact same thing.  It is a vicious cycle.  So I repeat - I am haunted by that story

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So, all I can do is strive.  To keep learning, chasing secrets waiting to be unlocked.  To keep analyzing, trying to expose the smoke and echoes.  To refuse to be chained and fixated on a blank wall.  And to seek reality in reality, instead of seeking reality in an empty wall.

Just as a side note:  All of this wall talk may bring to mind "the wall" that our society now seems to be fixated on.  (Yes, I mean Facebook.)  Disclaimer: I do not hate social media.  In fact, I think it is a great tool for business, socialization, etc.  When it is used as a tool.  I mean, a man runs a chainsaw, the chainsaw doesn't run the man.  And you can imagine the tragedy that would befall if he tried to let it. (You can tweet that.)

Yet, due to the addicting nature of social media we often find the tool controlling us.  I rarely log on to Facebook.  Not because I dislike it, but because I like it too much - an hour goes by before I've even realized it and I still haven't accomplished the task I originally logged in to do.  That was an hour wasted.  An hour I could have spent accomplishing something, learning something, really investing in myself or in another human being.  (Again, not that our social media can't be used as a tool to do these things, but I for one will admit to it causing me a LOT of wasted time also.)  Maybe, just maybe, the fixed attention on the wall of constant status updates and random pictures might be leaving us hollow inside - or worse, feeling like we've been torn apart by a chainsaw.  Maybe, just maybe, in doing so we're following only shadows and echoes of reality?

The irony is that I just spent time writing something that few people will actually read.  Why?  Because it isn't on Facebook.  :)

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