In an excerpt from “The Republic” title Plato I read that there was a time when prisoner to spend their entire lives in a cave. In this cave they couldn’t see anything else but their own shadows and the shadows of the people crossing by a path inside the cave behind them. They only had an illusion of how was it like outside the cave but they didn’t know anything else. If one of the prisoners was lucky enough to be taken out from the cave and see the real world outside the cave he would be amazed of what he saw with his own eyes. He would find the outside world so much better than what he imagined it to be like. This prisoner would then realize that he has been having the wrong illusion of how the outside world was like, and he would try to tell the other prisoners about it, but they’ll pretty much ignore this prisoner and keep on living with the illusion that they believe in.
“Plato” brought me to the conclusion of thinking that in life people a lot of times try to ignore the truth of something that’s going on in their lives, or the truth about something that they believe in and only go with what they believe in and nobody can change their point of view. They will only believe in what they believe and if somebody tries to change their mind they will ignore that person because to them that person is wrong. People that are like this reminded me of the prisoners who live in this dark cave believing in this illusion that they’re not sure about, without trying to think deeper if their illusion is true or false. If only people like this could listen to other people’s point of view and try to be understanding and take their advices that’s the only way they can stop living in that cave and come out to the lightened world.
Like I mentioned before “People some of the times try to ignore the truth of something that is going on in their lives.” They do this because to them is better to live under the illusion (wonderland) than knowing that they have been wrong most of their lives. I will have to include myself in this category because I sometimes prefer to ignore the truth of the situation and live under the allusion, just because I believe sometimes is better to just pretend you don’t know something for my own good or the good of others. One example that comes to my mind is when a bad rumor comes out about a celebrity and you thought that this celebrity was a good person and stuff, some people choose to ignore the rumor just because they cant stand the fact that they’re wrong and that they have been living under this illusion the whole time since they first started liking this celebrity. I don’t know why they would do that rather than accepting the truth and knowing that things sometimes are not what you expect they are.
I believe that is better to live facing the blinding truth and getting scorned and rejected by other people in society than to live in the cave ignorant of the truth but safe in the comfort of the illusion. First of all I believe this because it’s not good to live blinded and believing in something that is not true because you know deep inside that you’re wrong and you don’t want to be rejected by society. I want to live knowing the real truth and not living a lie because I want to face reality and not in a wonderland that is not even real.
