“The Allegory of the Cave” from Plato’s The Republic:

Plato’s The Republic, and specifically “The Allegory of the Cave”, (ca. 380 BC) is objectively one of the greatest writings of all time. It’s been interpreted and dissected in any number of ways, it is ~2400 years old afterall. (Fun Fact, it’s even the core idea/basis of my favorite movie of all time “The Matrix”). But I’ve found the allegory to be extremely helpful for me as of late from a Creative inspiration standpoint as I’ve been diving into the unknown trying to do things that I’ve never done before and that also happen to be extremely scary to me.

In the allegory, Plato illustrates one of his core beliefs in that “[T]he world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it”. He does this by logically showing that the idea of imprisonment can appear to be better than the idea of freedom to human eyes (literally). And that not experiencing the real world and not living your best life can be easily rationalized under the wrong light in the right circumstance(s).

Fear of change and “The Unknown” can be one hell of a deterrent. Our Brains can play tricks on us and we can even use logic to bring us to incorrect conclusions. Sometimes, making the right choice, and doing what is best for us (as individuals) can be one of the scariest and hardest things we can do. But while it might be difficult at first, it’s oh so worth it in the end.

Take the leap and go out of your cave, and into the light.

Links to text: (both are the same idea/story/allegory, the second link is just translated into more modern language)

The idea of doing something different than what you have known, and of doing something that you should do, something that you love, something that should be a “no-brainer” to you, can be objectively scary and one can easily rationalize that it’s better (safer) to just not do it. But sometimes logic and what you see isn’t the correct answer, and you just got to do it anyway

From “Creative Quick Takes” circa 2019