Searching For the Light

  This was my first attempt at a college essay. I kinda overshot the scope necessary....lol. This was the first project assigned in Comp I last fall, we were supposed to read Plato's essay "The Allegory of the Cave" and then write something about it, a review of what it said and what it meant. I guess what he was expecting was about three sentences something like this: "There once was a guy named Plato who lived a long time ago in Greece. He wrote an essay called "The Allegory of the Cave", which talked about finding knowledge. I had no idea what this essay was talking about."
      Instead, I wrote out the following four-page paper, all our teacher(the hippie Mr. Deiter) wrote on mine was "More than I was looking for."

Searching for the Light

     "Plato(429 B.C.-348 B.C.) was one of the deepest thinkers in the history of ancient Greece - a land that produced one of the most intriguing civilizations ever recorded. As such, he has been studied for over two thousand years, many of his ideas influenced later theories and ways of thinking, which further influenced cultures and mindsets. His writings and speeches contain many grand concepts that are a little hard to understand, such as those expressed in "The Allegory of the Cave", which was part of a larger utopian treatise entitled "The Republic". 

     Mainly addressed to his students and disciples, a specific student named Glaucon is mentioned several times throughout the piece. In structure, it's a learned dialogue between teacher(Plato) and student(presumed Glaucon), a dialogue told in allegory to help the student retain the information and understand it easily. 

     The picture(for that is what an allegory is; a story told in easily applicable mental pictures to make its point) essay opens with a scene of humans in "an underground den", heavily shackled to keep from moving, who have been imprisoned in this cave since childhood. A mammoth fire is burning, keeping all they see in flickering shadow, which is their whole world. All they know is what is in the cave with them, or rather, what they perceive to be in the cave with them. Seeing the shadows of objects in the firelight, the reflections become the cave-dwellers' truth. 

     Now, as Plato supposes, one of these men was somehow able to escape from his chains, leaving the cave and entering into the sunlight. His eyesight would be dazzled; he would be blinded by the shock of perceiving the light for the first time, it would be overwhelming. The reality he knows - that of the shadows - is nowhere to be seen, and the place in which he stands seems distorted and alien. If someone was to tell him that the world he was now in was the true one, and that the world which he left is an illusion, he would (quite logically) deny that statement. As Plato says, "Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formally saw are far truer than the objects which are now shown to him?" 

     Now, being forced to look at the direct source of the light in the world, the pain of this effort will be infernal; his whole self will explode from the strain, and he will be able to see nothing clearly. 

     Over time, however, his eyes will be able to take in more clearly more and more of the objects and men that he sees in this world. Eventually, he will even be able to see the sun, seeing and observing all these things, will be able to form ideas and notions about the existence and purpose of that which he sees. 

     Given his new abilities to be able to truly see the way things are, he will naturally pride himself on the accomplishment of undergoing such a change, and would pity those still locked into the old life he once knew, finding them lesser beings. Now supposing he was forced to return to the cave, his eyes would be confounded by the darkness, and if in a contest against those imprisoned always in measuring the shadows on the wall, he would look ridiculous and fail miserably. Other would say that after leaving the cave, he lost his eyesight, and thus attempting ascend out of the depths was foolhardy. If anyone was foolish enough to try such a mad scheme as to leave, he should be put to death, in order to escape such a cruel fate. 

     The representation is this: The actual world, that which we see, is the prison, the fire our sun. The light is the spiritual world, the mental world; that which cannot be known in the cave. The journey upwards symbolizes the trek of mankind. As they climb higher and higher in the thirsty search for knowledge, our souls come to understand things of which, farther down the path, we never would have dreamed existed. 

       Plato goes on in this exposition of the tale to explain that want to know, striving to understand; once they come to realize that there is so much out there in the world, we try to rationalize or explain all the unknown "Whys" we encounter.
     A truly educated person, however, is one who climbs the mountain out of the depths, absorbs all that he can, and then returns to the bondage of ignorance, and in explaining his newfound knowledge, he sets his fellow prisoners free so that they can start on their own pilgrimages, their own journeys towards discovery, further enlightening and enabling those who follow after.
      Contrary to Plato's ideas, mere possession of knowledge is not the end-all of humanity, the ultimate pinnacle and purpose of mortal achievements. Knowledge is merely a tool, a vitally essential tool; but a tool nevertheless. Is crafting a hammer and some nails going to create buildings for men to dwell and do business in? Simplistically speaking, yes, that would be true. But a closer examination would reveal the hammer and nails, once crafted, need to be used for their appointed end:  that of the construction of the building. In the same way, once we have that knowledge in our toolbox of the mind, the only way to do anything worthwhile in the world is by using that knowledge for its intended purpose; that of serving the greater good and playing a role in something far greater than anything we mortals could possibly fathom. This is what the essay means to me.
     Many people, including myself, believe in Christ, and part of our duty is to glorify God and point others to Him. Not only by preaching, but by more everyday tasks like healing, listening, counseling or otherwise just showing up on time for work each day and giving the day's chores all that we have. Other religions also state a belief in some grander purpose, and those followers strive to understand how to fulfill what they can do in the world, and know what they can't. Still others, trying to ignore the microscopic pin-drop of their lives in the mural of eternity, take this knowledge they find and apply it by saving the environment, or find some fulfillment by decrying that "There is no purpose in life; we have no reason to exist."
     That isn't ttue. As long as humans continue to exist, they will know that there is more out there. They will instinctively understand, on some level, that they know nothing except that which they perceive, and that their perspective much be widened and given depth. Once they understand this, the search for knowledge begins. And once this knowledge is attained, they know, whether they choose to obey the internal command or not, that they must go back to where the path started and share what they found with others. This is what the essay means.
     That leaves one question unanswered - How will this knowledge be used? For corrupt, twisted means of personal gain and greed? Or for freely sharing and providing a resource for future generations to come?"