Embracing Reality

Embracing Reality

The Greek philosopher Plato tells a story of people held prisoner in a cave from birth. They’re bound head to toe so that all they can see is a wall. Behind them is a fire. Behind the fire, the cave entrance. Beyond the cave, the sun.

Outside the cave, people walk by. Those outside and the prisoners themselves cast shadows on the wall. So for those held prisoner inside the cave, people or anything related to reality are merely shadows of reality.

At first when they are freed from their bonds, they have a hard time believing it. They walk outside and see what is real, assuming that this vision must be illusion, that surely the shadows are what is true. But the shadows are, at best, once removed from reality.

Pursuing a life that matters means being freed from the cave and the shadows we’ve accepted as real, to see the world as it was meant to be seen.

To live life as it was meant to be lived.

Open my eyes that I may see. —Psalm 119:18