TH 300-3
Paul Bubash
9-3-07
My Cave
In “The Allegory Of the Cave”, Plato speaks of a world where people are blinded by their own personal view that they are never able to truly see what would make them happy. My personal cave is full of biases and stereotypes especially in the area of meeting people. While the prisoners in the cave saw shadows, I saw stereotypes. Going into freshman year, many people, my parents, teachers, Fr. Marco in our first mass, told to be accepting of others and their friendship. But, I look back at that year as a time where I prejudged people and decided if I wanted to know them or not. I rejected friendships of people because we didn’t like them same things, played different sports, or they just looked different or weird to me. I categorized entire groups of people based on person in the group. I thought I hated all water polo players because of one kid who was near my locker. I had a small group of friends and was happy for a while. I ignored the reality that I was being left out. Luckily, there were some people who helped me try to get past these prejudgments. My senior advisor Tony helped me escape like the prisoner returning to the cave. He showed me how one could try to be friends with almost everyone. He didn’t seem like the coolest person at first but he was a great role model to have and I really wish I were nicer to him. I didn’t stop prejudging people right away but progress comes in stages. Once out of the cave, the prisoner can’t look directly at the sun. First he must see reflections in water, then he looks at the stars, and finally the sun. Like the prisoner looking at the sun, I got hurt at first. Some people decided to hang out with different people and find new groups and leave you alone. But being accepting of different people is better in the end. I found new friends and am happier now than I was before. I still prejudge people sometimes, but I’m working at it (progress comes in stages). I even made friends with some of those people I used to dislike. I try to remember my past experiences when I automatically stereotype people. I am nowhere near being completely rid of this natural habit of prejudgment, but with work I hope I can over come this obstacle and look directly at the sun.
