The Value of Transcending the Self

How cognized are you with the privilege of your ignorance, that you so willingly harbor? How profoundly does it hold its significance? Is it of great value to outstrip your providential reality and behold yourself blinded by the glare of undistorted truth? The raw, unveiled version of what reality truly is? Ever the seekers of wisdom, both Plato and Russel illuminated this very contemplation. They advanced the notion that the human race is deceived by immediate perceptions as the ultimate truth, blatantly disregarding the task of valid enlightenment. Subsequently, they establish philosophy as the very key for the pursuit of clear-sighted wisdom that goes beyond the borderlines of painted reality. This essential enterprise is what I believe to be our generation's form of resistance against the very forces who feed on the ignorance and intellectual decline of our society. The lack of knowledge is what fortifies the ones who seek to control us through their duplicity, be it powerful states, the media, and ultimately our very mind itself. To not ascend and outgrow the confines of your own being and unmediated perceptions of the existence around you after such dawning of truth, shall be your surrender to the condemnation of a hollow life devoid of meaning that consumes us as a whole.

Harking back to the dawn where Plato was drawn toward such formulations of understanding. An era marked by wariness towards those who were drawn into deep realms of thought that challenged authority, strikingly akin to our current one. Plato brought forth his Allegory of the Cave as an exemplar of the deceived perceptions of reality and the price of exertion that those who seek intellect bear. Within his allegory, Plato states, “If he were compelled to look straight at the light, wouldn’t he have pain in his eyes which would make him turn away to take refuge in the things which he could see distinctly? And wouldn’t he think that the things he saw before were in reality truer than the things now shown to him?” Plato embodies how the very chains of the prisoners are their own ignorance; the inner equilibrium of man perceives the rising of consciousness as a rupture to the comfort that the soul must relinquish to attain deeper insight. The one who attempted to illuminate his cave companions about the fallacious reality they blissfully consumed found only hostility in return. Plato captures their defiance through his words, “And if anyone tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.” Hence why Plato advocates for the soul to transcend beyond chains and covet the liberation that flows from awareness, though the path toward it is fraught with hardship and ostracization. (Plato, Republic VII. 515e-516a)

Such advocations of intellectual freedom crossed the centuries, from the dawn of philosophy with Plato to the analytical rigor of Russell. In spite of the numerous eras that emerged between them, Russell, like Plato, implores the liberation that knowledge produces, despite the structures that seek to shroud or strike it down- forces not solely external from society, but also from within the self. In Russell’s words, “The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation.” The refusal of querying will inevitably, through Russell’s perspective, result in drifting through your life as a mechanical echo, deaf to thought and bound by inertia. Russell proceeds to beckon, “Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from tyranny of custom.” His assertion of philosophy’s value alludes to the fact that clarity arises when we transcend the narrow material concerns which are too shallow to nourish the depths of human existence. (Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, 1912)

Bridging the past and the present, the glare of our own era is marked by wordless yet resounding bellows of intellectual poverty. A quiet that reverberates through our souls which breathes through the yearning of knowledge, the desire of comprehension, and above all, the unbound rebellion of thought. Regrettably, we live in the paradox of a governed society, an age of abstruse domination of man’s innermost faculty: the mind itself. Society is shaped and shackled alluringly into the succumbing of skillfully crafted immediate perceptions for the preservation of personal comfort and avoidance of resistance. Yet, in my understanding, the self stands to be the man’s most formidable deceiver, suppressing himself in a prison adorned with pride, fear, comfort and everlasting bliss of ignorance. Praised for and accommodated by society, this very prison ensnares us in a ceaseless cycle, reducing man to a shadow of thought. Our innate nature contradicts such pretenses, since to belong to the human race is to hunger for the knowledge of all that exists; for we are restless souls and greedy minds forever yearning to feed upon more. It is therefore essential and foremost natural to surpass one’s self boundaries and journey past the mirrors of perception, for what are we if not unsatisfied curious minds in this vast universe?

Divided by millennia, yet aligned in inquiry of escaping narrow perceptions, both Plato and Russell converge the strain of resistance against how society conveys reality in sweet ignorance and the urgency of transcending beyond oneself. Plato forewarns us of the peril inherent in illusion whilst Russell emphasizes the significance of questioning. We must beware of taking such words lightly and partaking in the continuation of a contented fool’s life. Illusions are unmistakably subtler in our time, the cave’s shadows are no longer on stone walls but on the glowing screens of our devices. An endless stream of opinions masquerade as wisdom, stimulation dressed as thought. An informed yet unaware generation, connected yet profoundly alone in its curated ignorance. For both philosophers, the pursuit of intellect is not an indulgence rather a moral act, an assertion of one’s human dignity. To honor what is the highest in ourselves we must seek truth, to refuse it is to betray the potential of the mind. Our greatest chains are forged by our own unwillingness to think beyond ourselves. Do not fear the vastness of thought, nor confine yourself from the freedom that knowledge bestows. Know that to awaken is to risk exile from comfort and belonging, even from your former self. Only through the very light that blinds you will it redeem you, for only through it can you see the full measure of being human. Whatever the price, allow freedom to be your only choice, not the tender and alluring deceit of a comfortable cage.

References:

Plato. The Republic. Translated by G.M.A. Grube, revised by C.D.C Reeve, Hackett Publishing, 1992.

Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 1912.