Plato's Cave | The Bar
2023 · Essay
Most people know the allegory. You're chained up, staring at shadows on a wall, thinking that's reality. Then you break free, see the light, and everything changes.
What nobody talks about is what happens after you break the chains. Because breaking the chains was the easy part. The part everyone celebrates. The part that makes for a good TED talk. What comes next is worse.
Plato's cave at first is blissful. You're chained up, but you don't know you're in the cave. Nowadays more and more people break out of the chains, but do they leave the cave?
What I picture is a long dark tunnel after you break free of chains. You don't really know where you're going. You bump into the sides of the cave and you thought you saw some light going this way so you keep going. You might not know where to go, you just know where not to go after bumping into it.
Then there are these doors in the cave and why wouldn't you try them? You're alone in this dark cave and don't really even know where you're going so you take a break from your journey by yourself and BOOM, the door leads to a bar.
Everyone is alike in this bar. They all agree on the way to live life, on what is bad about the world, and what is the meaning of life. It's not so lonely anymore. They greet you and as long as you agree with their views, you have a new home. You enjoy it so you stick around. You spend years in this bar, and nobody has changed, nobody has grown, nobody has questioned themselves.
You think back to the time you were walking through the dark cave and what got you to remove your chains in the first place. The madness of feeling like there is something else out there. That reality isn't what it is. That everyone else is crazy and you are the only one sane.
Something comes over you and you scream "what the fuck are we all doing here? Why the fuck did I come to this bar? I'm out!" and you walk out of the bar and into this dark cave again.
You keep going for months, but now you aren't going to stop until you find the light or you're dying. Those are the only two options.
You realize along the way that there are hundreds of doors leading to different bars. One for people that are gay, one for people that believe aliens are gods, one for Christians. Seemingly there is one for every view in the world.
And it hits you like a rock thrown in your face.
All these people think they broke free of the chains because that was the decoy. Leaving the cave altogether is the part no one does. Everyone thinks they broke free of their chains, but they just found a nice little room in the cave to hide out in.
You start to wonder, "at this point, why am I even leaving the cave?" And you realize it's not something you want to do. You just can't not do it.
I wrote this when I was 23. The thing that stayed with me is that last line. It's not something you want to do. You just can't not do it.
Eventually you find a bar you actually like. And you stay for a while. Not because you're chained there, not because you're afraid of the dark, but because it's good and you chose it. And if it stops being good, you switch bars. The freedom was never about refusing to sit down. It was about knowing you can stand up whenever you want.
The best part is going back into the cave after you've already been through it. Walking past doors you used to live behind. It feels like you took all your clothes off and now you can just put them back on. A little lighter. More flexible. More free.