Back to the Cave

     Nothing takes a greater toll on a person than “having” to pretend to be less than you are, in intelligence, ability, awareness, or spirit.  I believe that.  There are always games to be played, like conceding to the requirement of a fancy paper with words like “bachelor,” “master,” or “doctor” on it before you’re allowed (much less invited) to have (much less express) an opinion on any subject a “sufficient” number of people have peed all over and marked as “expertise.”  Even some of those subjects are validly “marked,” but a lot of the others are questionable, at least in the absolute-ness of their boundaries.  Of course, there are rules to be followed, per my previous blog — I’m not ignorant to this.  There are even rules to be manipulated simply for maintaining your comfort level, or for finding a way past them, just to have a chance at changing a few of them on the other side.  I get it.

     Damage starts being done when you collect too many wounds, especially too close together, when the sting of all the marks that have been made upon you overwhelm what you believe, and what you KNOW.  When you fall for the idea of the “lesser” reality and try to submit to it even after you know better, that’s when you really start to crumble.

     There are essentially three perspectives, near as I can tell.  Some people are happy with the show on the wall.  Others have snuck a peripheral glance back far enough to see the fire and are comfortable with the “understanding” that ooohhh, the fire makes the shadows…cool.  A very rare, sadly rare, few others turned around, saw the fire and thought, “No way such a great show comes from that,” noticed the light beyond, and followed it, all the way out to the full light of the TRUTH.  Some of them wander off to just live in it, maybe a little selfishly, maybe just self-protectively.  An even rarer few, brave, sacrificing souls go “back in” to try to share the awesomeness they’ve discovered, because really, who wouldn’t want to KNOW?

     The truth and the rules are in continual conflict, and it’s no easy job to balance them, but it’s doable, if and only if you are solid in your experience out in the light, if you’re okay with just being right, sometimes when nobody (and I mean nobody) else agrees that you are.  It’s especially hard because most of the people making the rules are the people who’ve never looked away from the wall.  They think they’ve made good rules, and that they must be the right rules for everybody.  Some of these people are brilliant, decent, all the good qualities you could think of to call people, but this does not change the fact that what they think they know, what they think they “understand” is only a shadow of the truth.  They’re convinced, even as you describe the light – the TRUTH – “outside” the Cave, that it is what they’re looking at, even though you can tell by what they say that it’s not.  And very, very few of them will ever feel curious enough, or brave enough, to look behind them and find out they’re wrong, because as far as they’re concerned, thinking it’s just you is working out alright for them.

     If you’re determined to go back in, and God bless those who are, you are going to have pain.  You’re going to be misunderstood to a extent that can’t even be defined, and you’re going to be hurt, over and over again.  It’ll seem at times like the only solution is to sit back down in front of the wall and try to enjoy the show, but that never works.  If you’re going to stay in the Cave and try to save people from their limited perspectives, you have to remember what you KNOW.  You have to KNOW it’s the TRUTH if you’re even going to be able to survive the endless conversations about how pretty the damn shadows are, much less be ready for the million-to-one shot at telling anyone, credibly, that there is something MORE.

     They can be so convincing, powerfully so.  There are so many of them, and some of them are such great, smart people, with such strong and well-developed arguments, that it can be easy to doubt yourself, especially when the “differences” cause so much trouble and anxiety and hurt.  It’s a fight everybody has with themselves, if they’ve been outside the Cave and chosen to go or in some way been “led” back in.  It’s a fight you can’t tell anybody how to win, even if you’ve already fought and won it yourself and can feel how bad it’s feeling for them.  All you can do is tell them that it IS a winnable fight, affirm when you can that what they KNOW is TRUE, and cheer them on.

     It ruins some people, crushes them or turns them evil or hard.  It even kills some.  You know when you’re seeing this fight, or when you’re in the middle of fighting it yourself.  There aren’t any easy answers, only the TRUTH you already know.  Claim it, and cling to it, and guard it, because sitting back down in front of the wall is not an option.  Be patient with them, but never give up on yourself and what you KNOW.

[Necessary preemptive action:

If you don't know what I'm talking about, then I'm not talking to you, so don't worry about it.  And if you don't, just be okay with that; don't convince yourself that you do and go off and dumb it down and sell it to other people while playing me off like I'm crazy. Yeah, that's right, Aristotle, I'm talking to you.]