The Allegory of the Cave

The Allegory of the Cave, written by Plato, was a very interesting read for me. It got me to think how alike we are to those prisoners in the cave. Just like them, we “see” or rather perceive shadows on a wall in our daily lives, but not in the sense of literal shadows, but in the form of events and desires that we may have. To the prisoners, the shadows were a “limitation” to their reality. For us today, I feel that our fears are our limitations; the things that stop us from seeing what is actual and the flight of the imagination. An example being a limit placed on me by my parents, to not allow me to fulfill my desire of riding a motorcycle. They fear that I may risk injuring myself, or worse, getting myself killed while riding. This is one of the shadows I feel we see today. My parents have seen the “shadows” of all the tragic motorcycle accidents, shown to them through the media. Another shadow that compels their fear is motorbike racing, shown to them via a TV or the internet because they only observe the dangerous aspects of racing, such as the unsafe speed of the bikes or the hazardous maneuvering on the track and expect me to do the same in reality on the streets. This I feel is distorting their view of seeing the “light” in actual bike riding. They don’t realize that if one educates himself properly, and gets the accurate training of how to handle a bike, then he or she can safely enjoy, driving a bike without the worries and fears of they previously had.
Quite like the prisoners, my parents are trapped in their view of this reality and one can only hope that someday, they too can see the light and break free from the fallacies that hold them