Shadows, Elephants and Drinking away our Illusions

Authors note: I originally wrote this essay several years ago for an older blog, which fell by the way side. I always thought the original essay was a bit incoherent and incomplete. The subject of perception of reality can be a bit confusing, to say the least. But, after the last few years of wild misinformation, far right propaganda, and “alternate facts” also known as lies, I thought this would be a good subject to revisit. So, I decided to rewrite this essay and hopefully make it more coherent and complete. And hopefully, leave at least a bit of my sanity intact.

Prologue 

“Luke, you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” / “The truth is often what we make of it; you heard what you wanted to hear, believed what you wanted to believe.” – Obi-wan Kenobi

That quote has echoed in my brain ever since I first saw Empire Strikes Back at a drive-in theater way back in 1980. For many many years I never really truly grasp what Obi-wan meant. Obi-wan had told Luke that his father was killed by Vader, and from a certain point of view that is sort of true, but at the same time it’s not the whole truth. From Obi-wan’s perspective, when Anakin became Vader, technically Vader did kill his old friend and apprentice. But as Luke would later discover, Anakin was still there, behind the mask. The fact remains that Vader is still Anakin, and Anakin is Vader. It was easier for Obi-wan to believe, the man he knew as a brother, was truly dead, and only the Sith lord remained. We need to realize that sometimes we create an illusion of what we want the “truth” to be. The human mind has a powerful coping mechanism that alters our perception of reality to protect ourselves from horrifying trauma. 

What is reality? What is truth? Is perception reality? Does reality even exist?   Is there truth? Some would say no. Reality doesn’t exist. Then are we all just figments of our own imaginations? Is it worth spending time and energy to discover the answers to these questions? I believe so. 

I have been told for most of my life that, “Perception is reality”. But something about that never sat right with me. I mean, what if your perception is incomplete? Rarely do we have all the details on any given situation. And our views can be askew. Especially when dealing with lies, misinformation and propaganda, especially prevalent in current times. Oft times we are bombarded with massive amounts of sensory information, which can cause tunnel vision. At such times we usually focus on what’s directly in front of us. Not unlike getting caught in a downpour.

Like most, I have as yet to fully grasp, understand or even to begin to discover the full nature of reality and truth. Which is why in the following text I won’t be going into what exactly reality and truth are, but more how our perceptions, beliefs, experiences and prejudices affect how we comprehend reality and the world around us. In order to understand what the truth of reality, we need to be aware of our biases and prejudices and how they affect our worldview. If we are oblivious to our biases and prejudices, we cannot overcome them. Not being able to overcome them we stubbornly cling to our ignorance. It’s a struggle we all face. And at times it feels like a Sisyphean effort. Is it all worth it? Hell, I don’t know. But I trudge on. It’s become an obsession for me. Not sure if that’s a good or bad. It’s definitely been quite the journey so far.

Escaping the Cave

To start things off, I am going to look at Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. A Socratic dialogue that is still relevant today, and says so much about ignorance and enlightenment. I’m going to have a look at it with a modern lens to show (hopefully)  how this dialogue relates to the current state of the world. in which we live. I’m not going to write out the entire story just to save time and space. If you want to read it in it’s entirety, you can find it online, along with several takes on this ancient telling. Ok, here we go. Wish me luck!

In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, we find several people who have been chained and imprisoned in a cave. They have spent their whole live in this situation, so it is all they know. They are chained to a low wall and behind the wall burns a fire, which cast light onto the wall in front of them. Every so often shadows of shapes appear on the wall in front of them. And they hear the voices of the people creating the shadows echo through the cave.  

Here Plato is describing a state of ignorance. We could also look at it, how societies and groups indoctrinate their members. Keeping its members in dark and blissfully unaware of the wider world, is the key to control. The cave can be seen as metaphor for an echo chamber. Insular communities and societies, cults and the such, cut off their members from the outside world, preventing any dissenting ideas from entering and disrupting the group. Such tactics also help to reduce the members from questioning the leadership and from thinking freely.

Being cut off and isolated can also lead to conspiratorial thinking and some very wild conspiracy theories. When you are uniformed, or even worse misinformed about world events, paranoia can really grab hold of your mind. Your imagination runs wild, and fear and irrationality take over. At this point, the world becomes a frightening and dangerous place. Everyone and everything is out to get you. Enemies around every corner. Spies lurking in every shadow. I have lost more than one friend to this trap. It’s hard to watch, and at a certain point you become helpless as they go down that rabbit hole never to return. They become prisoners of their own minds, trapped in a world of shadows and echos.

On with our story, one of the prisoners is released and wanders outside of the cave. Upon existing the cave, the sun burns his eyes, and he has trouble making sense of this new place. It is not a world darkness, shadows and echos of the cave, but a world of forms, sounds and light. Eventually, he adjusts to the world, and becomes engrossed in it. He is taught about everything that exists here.

After his enlightening experience, he returns to the cave to tell his fellow captives about this new world, in hopes he can free them too. His description of the world outside the cave was met with disbelief and violent rejection. In the end the task to free the others was in vain.    

In the second part of the allegory, the released prisoner represents the philosopher on the path to enlightenment. After a lifetime of societal indoctrination, the acceptance of truth can be quite painful and maddening, and at times piss you off. The mind can be a stubborn thing. Even though you know that many of your old ideas and beliefs are no longer true and useful to you, the mind will continue to cling to them. And there are those who will not let go of old beliefs to the point that they will become violent when confronted or questioned. They live in a world of fear and hate. Not only are outsiders reviled, but they cannot trust anyone. Not even those closest to them.

Many times in my life, I have had moments when I discovered everything that I had been taught had no truth to them. These moments can be very painful both psychologically and physically. The most brutal of these moments was when I first left the military after twelve years. Readjusting to civilian life, I discovered that many of things I was told in the military were complete bullshit. Years and years of indoctrination and lies just fell away. It was one of the most stressful times in my life. Jingoism and nationalism are just two corrupted ideologies that really twist the truth into the most foul propaganda.      

Plato thought the masses were too ignorant and stubborn for self-rule. He picture the perfect society being ruled by philosopher kings. I personally reject any sort of authoritarian rule, and have found that those who believe they are superior to others, usually are anything but. And tend to be arrogant pricks. I believe the answer to stubbornly ignorant masses is to educate them. I know, another Sisyphean effort. But, an educated population becomes more rational, reasonable, and able to make more productive and progressive decisions for society at large. Besides, such elitist thinking to let the masses wallow in their ignorance, while so called “enlightened philosophers” lord over us, leads to discontent and the people will eventually overthrow the philosopher kings. This path often leads to disaster. We’ve seen this play out time and time again over the course of history. Authoritarians rise and fall.                      

Let’s Talk About the Elephant in the Room

There is an ancient parable that originates in India and is found in Buddhist, Hindu and Jain writings. The earliest dates back to about 500 BCE and is written in the Buddhist text Udana 6.4. It is about six blind men and elephant and goes something like this.

Under the heat of the summer sun, in a small village in India, sat six old blind men. Not a one had ever seen an elephant. It was on this day that an elephant came to the small village. Each of these six blind men was very curious as to want an elephant is. So they went to the village center, where the great beast stood. 

The first blind man approached the elephant and walked into its broad side and felt the enormity and sturdiness of the huge animal. After a small pause, the man loudly proclaimed, “Ah! An elephant is like a wall”

The second blind man walked up to the tusk and by his touch could feel that it is very round, smooth and quite sharp. “Ah ha!” screamed the blind man, “An elephant is like a spear.”

The third blind man came forward and walked up to the elephant grabbing its trunk. The trunk squirmed and slithered in the man’s hands, and the third blind man said, “Yes, the elephant is like a snake.”

The fourth blind man reached out and felt about the knee. The leg of the great beast was very wide and round and felt rough like bark. The old man surmised, “Ah, even a blind man such as me can see that an elephant is a tree.”

The fifth blind man came to the elephant and touched its enormous ear. He could the breeze it created every time it swung to and fro. “Ah, it’s so obvious,” cackled the man, “an elephant is very much like a fan.”

The sixth blind man approached the elephant and seized its tail. By the feel and touch of his hand his could feel what exactly what this is. The man exclaimed, “An elephant is like a rope.”

It was then that the six blind men began to argue and squabble over who is right. 

The overall moral of the story is how limited our experiences and senses are and how we need to embrace the diversity of voices and look at everything from as many view points as possible. It also reminds us of the trouble we can get into when we forget this. 

In the story, each of the blind men believed (from his narrow perspective), that he was correct. Of course, you can make the argument that each man was correct from his point of view. But each of the men has a very limited view of the elephant. Each saw, or in this case felt,  only a small part of the elephant, but not the whole beast. They each had an opinion of what an elephant was, but lacking all the details they failed to comprehend the entirety of the elephant. If each of the six men had put together each piece of information together, kind of like puzzle, of the elephant, they could have easily found the truth of the elephant.

So often, people make countless ill-informed decisions based on their limited point of view, without any effort of even trying to look at the big picture. This, more often than not, can inflict a lot of harm. Historically, wars have started by leaders not willing to listen to others, and stubbornly holding on to rigid beliefs.

Having a limited view of the world, without even an attempt to broaden our perception, can result in willful ignorance, tunnel vision and conspiratorial thinking, keeping us ill-informed and frightened. This ultimately creates an oppressive atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust. Which is the usual outcome of such a perception of “reality”. 

The Wanderer Goes to the Well

Since I was a kid, I’ve always loved old fairy tales and myths. As a teenager, I was drawn into the world of the Scandinavians with the stories of Odin and the other gods. One story that always stuck with me is the story of Odin traveling to Mimir’s well also known as the Well of the Knowledge, at the base of  Yggdrasil. One drink from the enchanted well gives the drinker great knowledge. Knowledge as deep as its waters. But there’s price. An eye. A price Odin was more than willing to pay. So, after Odin plucked out his eye, Mimir granted him permission to fill his horn and drink from the well.

I’ve always loved this story. It’s one of the stories that turned me on to Norse mythology. I always thought that it was so awesome that Odin was more than willing to rip an eye out for one hornful of the waters of knowledge. It was later in life that I discovered that it wasn’t an eye Odin sacrificed. The sacrifice of the eye is just a metaphor. What Odin was really giving up was his illusions. See, when we acquire knowledge, there is always a sacrifice that must be made, and that is ignorance and the delusions it creates. And as we grow and learn, there also comes times when we must relegate traditions and beliefs that no longer serve us to the trash heap of history. It is only when we are willing to give these things up, that we may truly see. Yes I know, it can scary and difficult, but also satisfying and empowering.

So, raise your horns and drink deep from the waters of Mimir’s well, till the illusions melt away. Skål!

The Cosmic Perspective

(Conclusion)

If there is one thing I want people to take away from this rambling musing, is that it is important to every once in awhile to stop, take a deep breath, take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Something I like to call the cosmic perspective.  From this vantage point you can actually see how everything is connected to everything else. And, from I’ve experienced at least, life is not a the straight and narrow road. It is a network roads that criss cross one another, winding here and there, dipping and rising, over the mountains and down into the valley, and through the woods. 

Imagine viewing the earth from outer space and taking a look around at the vast cosmos. From this perspective we realize just how small and insignificant we are. It’s quite humbling. In the grand cosmic scheme you realize that nothing is eternal, not you, not I, not empires or civilizations, not the world, not the gods, not even the universe itself. But don’t let it overwhelm you. Take solace in our insignificance. Embrace it. It relieves the pressure put on us in life. Besides, so many people consider insects to be insignificant, but without them our world would become a barren wasteland. Or ponder if you will the grain of sand. Minuscule in nature. But in an oyster, it produces a pearl. Get enough grains of sand together and they can erode to tallest mountains and bury civilizations. We are powerful in our insignificance.

Study. Research. Seek truth. Keep yourself humble when learning, and do so with a beginner’s mind, empty and clean. Question everything, especially your own beliefs and thoughts. We must most critical of our beliefs. Our beliefs can constrict our growth and become obstacles to reasoning and comprehension of the stimuli we are bombarded with. As such, we must be wary not to become constricted by our beliefs. As the late great John Trudell stated, “When we’re believing we’re not really thinking, because the belief has walls: ‘This is what I believe.’ So what I believe is like a box, and we’re taking the energy of our thinking and putting it into a box of beliefs, pretending that we are thinking.”

  The more you learn and know, the easier it is to decipher truth from falsity, and it becomes easier to adapt to change and alter our thinking, expand our minds. Keep our minds open, but still have that healthy level of skepticism. The light of knowledge not only disperses the darkness of ignorance, but also chases away fear. 

My intent for the Order of the Storm Crows is as a gathering place for us to share knowledge and information and educate each other on our experiences and views of things. 

I leave you with one final quote. A quote from one the greatest Arab scholars, bin al-Haytham.

“The seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.”

–Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham