Plato’s Cave: An analysis of shadows.

By Moloch the Mephit.

 

I am not a creature of human society, so please excuse any inaccuracies as limitations in my understanding. I am a mephit, a creature which lives within volcanoes deep down in the flow of magma. My wings are made of sulfur plumes, my arms are rivers crawling into the ocean, and my skin a crackles with fire. I rarely leave my volcano, spending much time watching the world nearby.

 

I’ve learned about people and animals, trees and cities. I’ve learned about armies and nations. I’ve learned of an interesting trait about human beings, they keep a history of events from before they were born. They are able to teach and learn, and their minds provide them a method to stand upon mountains and to gaze into the darkest oceans. They record these things on paper, stone, strange devices, voices, dancing, stories, and are able to organize themselves according to the details of these ideas.

 

I have eyes, although not trained to see the small scribblings of human beings, I have taken steps to train my eyes to see words upon the pages of books. I have read and found a small bit of understand in an analogy of Plato and his cave. Plato being known for articulating the thought, it is also likely many humans conceive of similar symbols for their existence.

 

In this symbolic cave, there is a fire, and people see shadows and objects, but cannot determine which are the shadows and which are the objects. Plato claims to be able to leave the cave, to travel into some greater more real reality, if such a thing is possible. Which provides some interesting questions, even for a creature of magma and fire like me living within the heart of a volcano.

 

Can we determine if something is real? Why does something being real matter more than non-real things? I will explore these questions in a short description of personal opinion.

 

The term real and realism infers a couple things. There is a functioning reality on its own without our perception, without a fire or shadows, or any of Plato’s symbols. If you close your eyes, the sun still shines and the moments tick away relentlessly. You can feel the sun on your face, feel the warm of the fire above, even if you are blind.

 

This observation leads to the conclusion of partial knowledge. You can know something about the world around you, but exactly what that something is not clear. Some human philosophers have concluded the ability to conceive of yourself means you probably exist. This is conceited at best, they are many non-thinking creatures, forces, and events which are inflicted upon human existence. Reducing the requirements for existence to an internal process is an escape from the complexity of knowledge which decorates Plato’s symbolic cave.

 

Human beings have also tried to use methods for proving things wrong. Again, they tried and reduce the complex world around them to simple terms, a language referred to as religion, science, psychology, and metaphysics of all flavors. Even Plato thought the cave and its shadows were a symbol for the unreal, a partial truth or incomplete truth. Plato thought escaping the unreal would lead to a sense of beauty, something he considered most harmonious and peaceful.

 

I think beauty and truth are connected, not because there is some weight to what Plato described, but because truth and beauty both provide a sense of order regarding existence. From watching humans they don’t pursue beauty or truth, they pursue something else entirely; power. Plato thought describing the cave and its shadows would give him power, or that truth can grant power, which again, seems only partially true.

 

Which leads me to the second part, why does something which is consider true matter more? This phenomenon was easier to understand for me when I looked at the pages of human history and their brief events. Human beings call things true which they can predict, and prediction is useful. They can predict which shadows are objects and which are empty vapors through trial and error, a behavior valued for its practical affects.

 

Unlike realism and realists, pragmatism excels at navigating this type of landscape. It does so by accepting partial truth rather than absolute truth, accepting partial reality rather than asserting of an authoritative one. Pragmatism does not claim what something is, but rather what can be done with it. Through accepting and discarding practical descriptions, human beings have avoided much of reality.

 

They avoid floods by moving away from the coastline, they avoid violence by fleeing the cities, and they avoid larger creatures to preserve their brittle descriptions of reality. Even within their own crumpled pages of history, they desperately try and avoid their past, where they came from. Which as a mephit I have seen from inside my volcano with my special kind of eyes.

 

I have seen where human beings came from: a tidal pool of extinction.

 

I have seen life spread its net, looking for some creature like human beings, and once found, the environment takes a predictable turn. Life finds its champion, and crowns it with the gifts of death, arms its champion with the weapons of destruction. The shape of the destroyer is different in each age. However once found, the champion creature eats and kills everything. Extinction provides a useful pressure for adapting to a greater world, a momentum to propel life into a greater reality.

 

Human beings are no different and regardless of their attempts to free themselves from the cave and Plato’s symbolic prison of doubt and uncertainty, they remain as much are part their system as they were before such realizations.

 

The existence of systems and prediction, extinction and life imply a greater reality. Yet even as the age of mankind advances, the details of the greater reality are speculative at best, changing from decade to decade. I assert that beliefs, and the language in which mankind views any kind of reality is a reflection of the environment which produces them. They are shadows of the world, a projection of what created them.

 

In my opinion the greater reality human beings are trying to define and navigate is the fire itself, the source of the shadows. Whether objects are truly real, part of reality, or mere shades of darkness on a cave wall, the fire provides illumination.  

 

I live near the heart of fire, deep underground. When human beings think themselves so large, and their shadows to strong, their caves populated with enlightened philosophers thinking they are outside the cave, then it is time. It is time to show human beings how frail their shadows are, and how bright the fire can be.

 

It’s a very simple motion; pressure and release.

 

Then the volcano opens, and I spread my wings and flow down the mountain. I fill the caves with fire and lava, my breath chokes the air, my journey shakes the world, and the violence of my eruption turns all objects into shadows, flickering briefly then silent. The fire rages like a storm made of greater winds, and the ground rolls like water, waves of stone, tides of earth flooding the world in a Holy extinction, divine sterilization. Inarticulate tongues of flame savoring the feast of a greater truth inflicted upon those who seek it.  

 

Perhaps as a creature of fire and lava I see much of myself in these symbols, looking for an easy language to define the motion world around me, to make sense of the conceit of my own existence. While I am a creature of fire, I am not unlike these shadow people.

 

I flow according to my tides, and like human beings, I am helpless to the motion of a greater fire whose hunger is like mine, and whose eyes see my world as a shadow flickering on a larger wall.

Shelia's Corner

Shelia liked the rodeo. She watched a video of herself one last time before giving up. The rodeo was recorded from her 28^th birthday. The cheer of crowds was muffled by an overhead industrial passenger aircraft.  Her house was directly under the airport. Like bees, there was no end to their buzzing. All hours of the morning were filled with departures and arrivals. Thunder greeted Shelia in the morning and nagged her at night.  She despised the noise, not only of airplanes, but of people, cars, trucks, refrigerators, clocks, snoring, crying, screeching, screaming, she loathed all the noises of squirming existence.

 

Tonight, however the airport was beautifully silent.

 

 She listened to the pristine silence and thought about moving to a place with an empty landscape, perhaps a vast desert or some tiny corner of Antarctica. She imagined the cold peaks of wind blowing, perhaps only above a whisper for endless nights, how peaceful such a place would be. She imagined a mirage of wet delusion, like a ribbon binding a gift of quiet dunes.

 

 

Shelia thought about suicide or dying most of her life, it was an intrusive and persistent thought. She tried once but quickly realized the act of killing herself was too difficult. Instead she decided to give up, to stop doing everything. Watching the rodeo was her last willful action for pleasure, the last noise she would make. Shelia laid herself upon the ground and started to let go of everything.

 

She went into a room within her head; a sparsely populated chamber where all her stimulation gathered. Her nose and ears where there, giving her reports on the fragrance of the carpet and the soft whine of the fan of her computer. Her eyes constantly updated her with much annoyance. As she gathered an inventory of the room. Her arms and back told her she was on s scratchy carpet, but Shelia didn’t care, she took all the reports and threw them in a hole in the corner of the room she couldn’t quite see.

 

Then the Internal reports continued to alert her, hunger from her stomach and pressure from her bladder. Shelia ignored those too, anticipating future reports of discomfort. They were a bit heavier, and when the evening arrived, her skin told her the air was getting cold. She shut it all out, and after laying like a pile of laundry on the floor, she fell asleep.

 

 Shelia woke the next morning with more reports, more urgency. Shelia did not care, she kept throwing the reports into the corner.

 

Shelia used to care, but her fuses burnt out a while ago, and the voltage needed to be grounded. The corner of the small room provided the relief to the suffocation of tasks needed to be done. Shelia found a moment to remember the first time she discovered the dark corner. She was after a car accident, and there was nothing she could do to stop it, just watch in slow motion. During those long snapshots of panic, the dark corner rumbled, purring for attention, and offered her a cool breath; to take the emergency, ball the reports from the senses, then roll it towards the corner, and the darkness would consume it for her. Then the report was concluded, finished, no more emergency, poof.

 

Since then, Shelia has been able to give up many things, drinking, smoking, sugar, meat, also bathing, teeth-brushing, hair-combing. and other basic hygiene. She gave up her friends, family, she even stopped saying hello to others, trying anything to avoid more reports coming into the cramped room in her head. She gave up watching movies, eating ice cream, sleeping regularly; doing whatever she wanted when she wanted.

 

However, getting what she wanted resulted in additional reports. Guilt, remorse, self-awareness, floods of new emergencies haunted her. The dark corner purred with hunger as it snacked on her anxieties and doubts, eating them as Shelia threw reports from her senses into the corner. The method worked and the cool breath of a taskless existence gave her peace.

 

Her loneliness was a new pleasure, a new absence she loved to roll around in. Now as she rotted slowly on the carpet, still aware and awake, but responding to nothing.

 

2 days passed and thirst was getting very powerful with its reports. The weight of their urgency was exhausting to shovel into the corner, as was hunger. Her muscles twitched from their painful stillness. There was a banging at the door, and reports describing other people in her home. Shelia threw those reports away, but not until she looked them over briefly.

 

Her family was checking on her and thought she might have had a stroke. They circled around her, propping up her body and trying to get her to respond. Shelia said nothing, watched them with a morbid voyeurism, she felt like she was watching her own funeral.

 

They called an ambulance, took thousands of tests, hooked her up to machines to keep her alive. Sheila didn’t care, the reports were far easier to handle with the strict regularity of a hospital. Her family shed their tears and returned to their lives, leaving her behind the curtain of a sterile hospital room. All evidence showed her brain working properly, yet she did nothing. They suspected a coma and shuffled her off to a dark corner.

 

For weeks Shelia enjoyed the peace of her dark corner. Then a report came to her, it bubbled up from deep within, a place she had never received a report from. The report was velvet, as if cut from a dark and heavy fabric. The words were stitched into the fabric with white silk and recommended a simple action.

 

“Pull the plug, end all the reports, it’s so close now.” The darkness purred again; the corner of the hospital shed no light other than the soft light of the machine. How the soft light seemed to hurt. How the pain of its persistence glowed in the night. Shelia pulled the plug, she shut down the reporting system, she welcomed the darkness and slipped away into the dark corner of the hospital.

 

In the morning, her bed was empty, the machine was off, the alarm was somehow silenced, and the medical attendants could not understand why they were not notified.

Garden of the White Roses

Perhaps it was 30 or 300 years ago, legends are vague with their details.

 

A lonely vizier lived in an iron fortress across a great and perilous desert. Occasionally someone travels across the desert to the fortress. Within the deep halls of the fortress there is a storehouse of iron ore, processed for delivery to some unrealized market. The carts of treasure are prepared yet abandoned. This is due a series of curses; great terrors which caused all to flee the fortress. Their tales and legend inspired treasure seekers and eager warlords looking to sheath their armies.

 

Rumor and mystery grew, promising nutrients to whomever followed the stories. Opportunity attracted a young king seeking the treasure of the iron fortress. He heard there was an ancient evil causing people to vanish, leaving no trace.

He guessed it was disease or superstition, and surely after such a lengthy time, any contagion would have burned itself out like a flame. Times were different now; superstition was something to be challenged, and he considering himself brave.

 

The young king, called Atem Anhenamut set out on a grand expedition to dispel the mystery and perhaps claim a treasure. King Atem travel by night, avoiding the burning sun and the waste of water. He planned a return trip and brought additional beasts of burden. Atem was cautious, calculating, and spent many nights discussing future schemes with his advisors. The stars were their witnesses, and the night hid their secrets.

 

The night dunes were a rainless river, flowing towards the mountains in the east. King Atem was the 10^th of his line, named after a noble house of rulers, who ruled without war. They built many structures and organized the people under geometry and labor.

Monuments marked the passing of each ruler and the name Atem was spoken at funerals, and became to mean the ending of things, the finale, the finishing touches.

 

Loyal servants were rewarded with burial rights, property laws were strict, and trade bloomed.

 

Then uneasiness grew in the stale peacetime. Even though Atem provided plenty of food, they wanted more. They wanted glass trinkets, golden luxuries, works of art from distant lands, unsatisfied with the markets of their own lands. Trade became tense, stretching the demands of a once peaceful nation.

 

For his return he planned to put down whomever attempted to replace him in his absence, and with the treasure from the mountains, he could raise a mercenary army and cleanse any traitors.

 

There would be new construction of an iron gate. No army could break it down, and the king’s laughter would mock any invaders. Atem, like those he ruled was also restless.

 

Atem was terrified of failure. As noble as he was, his life was filled with safe choices. His ancestors ruled wisely from experiences, experiences he didn’t have. Secretly he hoped the grandeur of the treasure was true, regardless of his proclamations decrying the superstition. He was surrounded by councilors, chancellors, advisors, experts, generals, and rarely made a choice of consequence without them.

 

The journey lasted 3 months, and the sight of gigantic iron gates gave Atem Anhenamut cause for celebration!

 

He rode out on a camel, flanked by his 2 closest advisors. He announced his presence to whomever was listening behind the iron gate.

“I am King Atem Anhenamut from across the desert, I have come to negotiate trade from my land, and seek the host of this fortress!” he proclaimed in a practiced voice.

 

Atem didn’t have to wait long, the silence was broken by the turning of gears and the moving of the iron gate, which was far larger than Atem imagined. It rose 300 feet above, and its hinges clenched the cliff face with rusted bolts the size of tree trunks. There was a thin and desperate voice from above the gate, “Hail distant king I am Vizier Baruf of the land of Ix. Welcome, I will meet you in the stables.”

 

Atem proceeded within, his guards surrounded him and prepared their crossbows. The gates continued to open even after the entire caravan entered its halls. It remained open, and the travelers found themselves looking over shoulder at the empty desert, expecting something, but unable to name it.

 

The stables were located near the entrance, and the caravan began preparations of unpacking tents, rugs, and the comforts which became expected from the king during the 3-month journey. A tea ceremony was prepared, and when Baruf arrived at the stables, the king was ready to greet him with an offering of rich tea from his lands.

 

Besides Baruf there were no others in the fortress, and his robes seem like a gathering of spiderwebs. This was due to the decaying cloth of the Vizier, perhaps his robes were once ornate, but time and use reduced them to tatters of sun-bleached white. He walked slowly to his chair, speaking in equal measure; “I am sorry I have no servants to assist you, it has been so long since I have seen another human being.”

 

The king replied: “Tell me of this place, and how you alone live here behind these iron doors?”

 

The old man Baruf took his seat with a little wince of pain from his hip and described the events of the great terror, “First a few servants went missing, I told the king of the reports, and was ignored. Then the iron smiths began disappearing, nothing unusual. It is not uncommon for our citizens to travel, but these smiths were not prone to traveling, and I told the king again. Then another curse came, famine, and many more fled the fortress. The next year another curse came, this time in the form of a green pox, killing many who loyally remained behind the doors of the fortress. This happened many years ago, and only I remain. If my tears were rain, I would have filled the desert. So many lost.” The withered Baruf wept, and the parched cracks of his face ached with the rain of sorrow.

 

The king thought a moment at these events, sipping his tea, then replied; “I am sorry for your grief. However, I do not believe in curses or evils, other than the actions of the living. What remains of this place now?”

Atem was irritated, he had traveled 3 months under the night to find a whimpering man and rusted gates, surely there must be something else!

 

Baruf gathered himself and adjusted his tattered robe reflexively. “Panic took everyone, but they left the treasure, you can find the abandoned holds of our caravans within the hillside warehouse. I will show you of course, I apologize for my emotional display, I may no longer be fit for civilization, as loneliness has given me so much. Let me show you what others have left.”

 

It took the better part of hour for old man Baruf to shuffle to the hill-cave warehouse and instruct the foreigners how to open the locks. What greeted them in the warehouse was nothing short of a fortune. Motes of gold, iron, glass, tin, figurines, swords, jewels, and enough to dazzle the eyes of the king. “Here is what remains, take what you will, I have no need, please take as much as you wish.”

The last words fell empty, no one was listening to the old man. There was a clamoring of intense urgency, cries of orders, chains, boards, planks and ramps rolled in and out of the warehouse. Greed bloomed like a fire, and wild imaginations filled everyone’s heads as they began sorting and preparing the treasure for the return trip. There was so much treasure, it would take at least a few days to process and inventory everything. 

 

King Atem didn’t see Baruf until the following morning when a grim and unnerving discovery was made. 6 camels and 12 servants had fled. Atem’s advisors guessed those who fled were overcome with gold lust and took what they could. The logic was hard to deny, there was quite a large pile of gold to take from. Atem ordered the inventory process to be under guard as the servants moved the massive treasure.

 

Atem was watching the inventory and packing process when Baruf shuffled into his presence. Baruf was still wearing his tattered robes.

The king offered a change of clothes, as the distasteful appearance of decay was in high contrast to the power and wealth he just acquired.

 

“Great king, you are wise to watch who touch your treasure, surely it won’t be the last. If I were a few years younger I would offer my services as your advisor. However, I am old and would not make the journey across the desert.” Baruf seemed to giggle at the idea of traveling. Atem barely acknowledged the frail man, but what he said was true. The king eyed his advisors with new suspicion but said nothing.

 

The next day, the same betrayal occurred. This time one of Atem’s trusted advisors were missing, as was another handful of servants. Their possessions were gone, they left no sign, and no one heard any violence during the night. This time Atem’s advisors were buzzing with speculation. They each had theories and guesses for why the missing advisor would have betrayed them.

Their squawking gave Atem a headache, he walked the halls of the fortress alone to ease his tension.

 

Atem found Baruf in a small room at the end of a hallway, looking out over the desert, humming a soft melody to himself. When he noticed Atem he turned towards him and said, “O great king, I didn’t see you there. I was lost in old memories of other kings who were heroes of ancient battles. I heard your advisors this morning and you were wise to distance yourself from them, perhaps they are not as loyal as they seem.”

 

The king continued his walk, barely acknowledging the old man, who, for some frustrating reason was still wearing the tattered robes, which seemed to be little more than heap of bedsheets stuffed into a human form, speaking platitudes, as if the old man knew any of his advisors, and what trials they had been through together. This was a deep wound of betrayal, not a wise consideration, Atem felt disgust towards Baruf.

The next day, the same occurrence repeated, another missing advisor, and more betrayals.

 

Upon the following day a fearful clarity washed over Atem. After a passionate discission with his remaining advisors he discovered there wouldn’t be enough people left to bring all treasure back across the desert. Atem was at a loss, his followers were fleeing, trusted friends missing, and his dreams were slipping through his fingers each night. He didn’t know what to do.  Atem’s desperation took another form, he became convinced his advisors would return, they wouldn’t abandon him, they would return with more laborers to help him carry the treasure.

 

Then another day passed, and in the morning only king Atem and Baruf remained. That evening Baruf came to the king with a wide smile. “O great king, I am dreadfully sorry for the situation you are in and the death of your ambitions. I can offer you little as you wait for your advisors to return, I can show you a secret.

It is more valuable than gold or iron, it is more loyal than servants or advisors. Please join me, I would like to show you my garden.”

 

The old man led him down a hallway, up and around a tall spiral staircase ascending through rooms of ancient splendor. The walls were covered in ornate paintings, dusty webs of neglect, and the stale air of empty bedrooms. They walked silently to a balcony overlooking a garden of white roses. So numerous were the roses, they covered the ground completely.

 

The briar was a gigantic mass of thorns and flowers, nearly reaching the balcony. The thorns looked like spearheads, and the trunks of the roses were as wide as trees. King Atem was struck speechless and stood in awe at the garden of monstrous vines. Baruf motioned to the edge and pointed at the white roses. “You see king, this garden offers something you cannot purchase or rule, something you cannot own or take. It is life, or rather it is alive with hunger, and because I tend these roses, I also hunger.”

King Atem sensed a threat and drew his blade. His disgust for Baruf overcame him; he wanted to kill the old man, to kill the words from his mouth, to kill the last few days, to kill the pain of betrayal, to kill.  How he hated the old man, in his shredded robes, what a mockery, what a cobweb. He attacked the old man with curved sword of elegant craftsmanship.

 

A slithering sound, and then a scream. The vines restrained Atem before the sword strike finished. Baruf stood unphased by the aggressive action. He watched the vines wrap around the king’s wrists and face. He struggled vainly, as the vines continued to cocoon him in their stalks. Baruf started laughing, and his robes and skin began to change.

 

The silent king was lowered slowly into the garden. Spears of thorns opened his veins over the humungous white petals of the roses. They drank each drop, momentarily turning red, then back to white again.

With each blood drop, Vizier Baruf grew younger, his robes mended themselves, his hair turned from white to black. He drew himself tall and confident with a heavy breath, lifting his young face.

 

“Thank you, great king Atem Anhenamut from across the desert! Your blood is indeed noble, it will nourish me completely, it contains all of the things which make a great ruler; your blindness, your conceit, your naive greed, your inability to think without advisors. You have my undying gratitude!”

Forked Tongue

 

Silence is golden. Silence is compliance. Silence is Holy. Silence is listening to others. Silence is observation. Silence is sacred. Silence is judged. Silence is a building, waiting to collapse. Silence is perching, waiting to strike. Silence is the 5^th amendment. Silence is purchasable for 300 dollars in the form of noise cancellation headphones.

 

Silence is a pillow over your head. Silence is a cloak. Silence is sensory depravation. Silence Is loneliness. Silene is solitary confinement. Silence is a cold shoulder. Silence is the grave. Silence is 20 years of things left unsaid. Silence is the ghost of a parent. Silence is forgetting the past. Silence is the death of culture. Silence is a pause between 2 catastrophes. Silence is broken by the frantic words of reckless people. Silence is a calm before the storm. Silence is a hurricane of pollution. Silence is a muffling smog. Silence is a weapon. Silence is violence. Silence is heavy tension between 2 people. Silence is a curse. Silence is a crack opening to nowhere, in which everything falls through.

 

Silence is a requiem for humanity. Silence is a seething rage. Silence is the future. Silence is stale. Silence is born on the wings of owls. Silence is dreamless sleep. Silence is comedic timing. Silence is a symphony. Silence is music for the dead. Silence is a hungry ear. Silence is the unknown. Silence is ready to break. Silence is the womb of doubt. Silence is pure. Silence is a dusty closet universe waiting to be swept away.

 

Silence is the language of the devout. Silence is a prayer. Silence is the night. Silence is absence of sound. Silence is a rainless famine. Silence is a voiceless choir. Silence is cruel. Silence is turning the other cheek. Silence is neglect. Silence is common. Silence is trivial corruption. Silence is a voyeur. Silence is tolerance. Silence is peace. Silence is nothing at all.