The Allegory of A Cave i
Publishing-in-support-of, EDUCREATION PUBLISHING RZ 94, Sector - 6, Dwarka, New Delhi - 110075 Shubham Vihar, Mangla, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh - 495001 Website: www.educreation.in Copyright, Author All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, optical, chemical, manual, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of its writer. ISBN: 978-1-61813-743-2 Price: ` 155.00 The opinions/ contents expressed in this book are solely of the author and do not represent the opinions/ standings/ thoughts of Educreation. Printed in India ii
The Allegory of A Cave Gaurang Joshi EDUCREATION PUBLISHING (Since 2011) www.educreation.in iii
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The unexamined life is not worth living - Plato, The Apology v
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Gaurang Joshi PART I 1
The Allegory of A Cave The Unseen Fact P It troubles my mind to see so many opinionated people walking on this planet day after day working for a far too meaningless idea. With the help of this book I hereby, would like to shed light on the fact that has been ignored by many and is the utmost important aspect of our society. The fact not only responsible for all the violence in this country, but it is also responsible for the characteristic property of an individual. The fact once heard can not only alter the way of thinking but can also bring out the differences between various groups in our society. To cover such a Brobdingnagian topic in this book, it would require certain specific details being described in short sentences which is a hectic thing to do. And when I write this, you must understand that I didn t mean to hurt the sentiments of any nationalist living in this country, because this is not only applicable for the society that we live in, but rather the whole world suffers from this disease. And, now coming to the point. I would like to start by writing that the whole concept of moral teaching appears to be completely false. One must understand that these are the thing that cannot be 2
Gaurang Joshi taught but can only be learned. Some people even confuse morals with manners. But these are completely different things. Manners can be taught and are not variable with the situation, on the other hand the learning of morals depends on the surroundings into which one has been born and raised. And adding the fact that it also depends on the basis of one s perception of the world, thus concluding the fact that every single individual walking on this earth is carrying his own set of morals and the fact of being judged by another individual having his own morals consisting of his own past and experience seems quite absurd. W 3
The Allegory of A Cave On Life Now, since it is been said that each individual s moral consists of his own past and experience, it is also safe to say that the idea of finding the true meaning of life is an utmost meaningless thing to pursue. Not only is it absurd but people thinking of having some purpose in their life seems to me to be another one of those pretentious bastards you see walking down the streets. To think that life has a meaning or in fact a purpose is to give in to your desires and be a slave of your own thoughts. Not only are these people unaware of the fact that they are just another mindless zombie, but they don t know that they can be influenced by any idea no matter how right or how wrong it may be, just as long as it completes their thirst for their desire. This brings me to the point where I conclude that the truth about life is not only unknowable but in fact doesn t even exist. The pursuit for such an element is completely irrelevant for living a happy life. In a pursuit of happy life one may even try to travel around looking for a place that would feel like home, a place where he could live freely and a place where he could find his significant other. But, what one does not understand is that happiness 4
Gaurang Joshi doesn t actually come with finding a home, but from building one. To find a place for living in some imaginary settlement where everybody is free should not be the ultimate goal of our lives, it may lead to a path of isolation and sorrow. Instead we must learn to embrace reality rather than life. Being a sceptic is also just as important, but finding the right answer may trouble your mind. If you are sceptical towards your society, you may change it but if you are sceptical towards the idea of life, then it will destroy you, because I assure to you that the answer you are going to get is just as dark as the world we live in or even worse. Whenever I confronted people by saying this, the only reply I got was You only live once, better get most of it. And to be specific I envy this lot, since it is easier for them to surpass all the sceptical knowledge, a person who has never questioned the meaning of his own life is ultimately the person who has lived. Camus in his book The Myth of Sisyphus explained how life has no meaningful pursuits and that a person should be happy no matter what obstacles one has to knock down, only to find that there are infinite number of obstacles in the way, to which I agree. But, the fact he implies is that one must always be happy and that happiness is the ultimate purpose of life, and this is the statement which troubles me. Just because happiness could not be the purpose, since it is an outcome of the act 5
The Allegory of A Cave which has been committed. To imagine Sisyphus being happy when he sees that boulder rolling all the way down and has to roll it back up to the mountain from where it rolls back down and to do this for all eternity until the end of time would not be considered as a happy life by some. But, we have to understand that in this situation we must not imagine Sisyphus to be happy but rather expect him to be happy because he has a purpose in his life. The punishment given to him by the gods not only gave him a purpose but a fine aim for his life, and that is rolling the boulder to the mountain top for all eternity. The story of Sisyphus proves that nobody is born with a sense of entitlement or for a purpose but instead the purpose is given to us by others who may be our family or friends or may be some almighty powerful entity that lost his temper because of our act. Thus, punishment is not just a thing, it s LIFE. W 6
Gaurang Joshi On Love In order to understand love, at least that thing which attracts us towards other people in such a manner that we end up desiring them above everything else, seems to be a little complicated. To understand this phenomenon we need to first acknowledge the fact that it is the human nature not to end up alone, which is considered to be an utter sad situation to end up in. Love, in our modern society is nothing but to find someone you could relate to, which is an absurd thing to do since no two humans are the same. Each person has his own perception of the world, its colours and other people. For example, one person may signify the colour yellow as that of sickness or that of boredom, whereas the same colour would represent mellow flowers or happiness to the other. Although, this example is not an actual proof of the absurdity of love but it s a mere start. We are living in a world where the idea of loving somebody or being loved by somebody is all we see around us. Everybody seems to talk, write or hear about love to a point where the fact of being in love is what astonishes us. Being in love becomes the sole purpose of our life. And I am not just writing about love for someone else, but rather love in general. Want to do the course you love, want to 7
The Allegory of A Cave eat the thing you love, want to hear the things you love and want to meet the people you love. In a world like it must be concluded that there should be no hatred. But, that is not the case. So, is there something that is wrong with love or just the way we represent or accept it? The key is to find the beginning of its root, to go to the beginning before reaching the end. At this point one may find that this is far more complicated. The time he fell for a particular thing was when he didn t have it, when he was a complete different person. Now, he has changed, so many things have come in his life. New experience, new past and new future. And in such a case if the thing he loved was just the same as before, it would be understood that it will try to drag him down, it will dampen his soul and would increase his urge to get over with it or leave it behind. Same is the case when you take two lovers as an example. First, I would like to shed light on the fact that I am not a romantic and neither do I like the idea of being one because a romantic is the one who always makes the wrong choices in the name of love. The key of finding a suitable partner for one s life is to find the one with the completely different character, one who can never relate to you even in a most troubling time so that they both grow together. 8
Gaurang Joshi Reading Fitzgerald or Hemingway makes you look at love in a complete different manner, maybe it s because of their literary genius that makes them describe love so beautifully, but it does not mean you have to take it literary. Love is not beautiful because of the characteristics of the people in love but rather because of the activities involved in its pursuit. Love is not something that is natural but something that is developed as per once experience of life, no matter towards his family or his friends. W 9
The Allegory of A Cave On Death Death is always considered to be a dark topic, since it involves some individual s permanent departure from this world. When we talk about death in public it often results in a dead silence almost like sadness filling the room slowly consuming everyone s soul. Although, this is merely because of the selfish characteristic of an individual. We always tend to provide a role to everyone who is present in our lives. In the case of one s death it is said that he has achieved peace, but lays a hole in the heart of people in whose life he has played a significant role. Why do they cry when the man who they loved so much has achieved peace in death? The answer to this is simple, they are crying for the person that they lost. There is a hole in their heart that just cannot be filled. The fact that he is finally at peace doesn t even come to their mind. Although this depends on the circumstances of death. For example, if he had died in an accident it would be sad because it was completely unexpected by his family or his friends. On the other hand a natural death is quite expected enough for them to acknowledge. To talk of death in this manner is quite unconventional as it is the most serious topic that I 10
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