When I was thinking about my personal reflection to Plato’s Cave allegory I realized that the immigration to the United States helped me to find my own truth. It opened my eyes to the realities of the world outside of my native society. I had to quickly learn how to adapt to the ways of life in the new environment. I am not trying to say that I was living in the Cave-like settings, but the change was rather drastic. At some point these new unfamiliar surroundings affected me the way the sun burned the eyes of the prisoner in the Plato’s allegory.
Before I moved to the US I was attending university in my hometown in Russia where I was growing up all my life. I was enjoying my freshman year with friends that I knew back from the high school thus I felt comfortable on the new campus. I was also playing on the university soccer team that gave me a privilege of missing my classes without any serious penalties. I could always talk to the coach and he would help me to fix my problems with past due assignments and missed exams. At seemed like I never had time to do my homework, but I could always find time for my social life. At the time I thought that the university was a place where you hang out rather than acquire important knowledge.
Shortly after arrival, I realized that I have neither close friends no family members. Most of my first year in immigration, I spent sitting in the room surrounded by nothing, but the four walls. I felt that I was in a complete isolation even though the life outside of my circle was moving at the same pace as before. My main problem was the fact that I didn’t know the language very well thus I couldn’t explain myself in the same way as in my native language. There was only one way out of my personal “Cave”, so started to do everything I could do to learn the language as fast as possible. Day after day I was working on my grammar, expanding my vocabulary, reading newspapers and listening to radio. In the course I learned to enjoy the process of acquiring new knowledge.
By the time I took my first class in the university in the United States I was mentally prepared to do as best as I can in any of my classes. It didn’t matter to me if like or dislike the particular subject or teacher. I learned to appreciate gaining a new knowledge and enjoy the process of doing your own work. I feel better prepared to face the task of learning something new be it a different culture, language or occupation. This experience led me in the direction of real truth in my life. I believe that I have a better understanding of myself as a person and know what I need to do to achieve my personal goals. Without this hard process of accommodating my eyes to the “sun” I could have still been on the same path of the total darkness.
Your story resonates close to me, while I never had to come into a whole new country, as a young child I did have to learn a new language and adapt to a new set of societal rules. I grew up in a household where I was the first US born, so my learned language and way of acting were not consistent with what was around me. While I did grow up in San Francisco, a city which has a lot of Latino influence, I grew up in specific under-privileged black communities. From Webster and fell to Hunters Point no one around me really spoke Spanish, so my learning of the English language had to be rapid. My parents had been in the country two years each prior to my birth, so their grasp of the native language and thus culture was primitive, so most of my learning was done through school and my own avenues like TV and comics. My cave was an ever changing, ever growing cave, the more knowledge I gained in the ways of this new cultural emersion I was in, the more I resented learning. I knew even then that I had to learn English and the culture around me, that I couldn’t just live in my bubble of a home. I saw my parents each take their routes to adapting further into society, yet that just made my cave grow bigger. I used what they taught me to educate myself in my own reality, not that which I myself was trying to immerse into. The part that frustrates me now is that thinking back I created and expanded my cave out of knowledge. I learned continuously, practiced and still hated what I saw and learned. Unlike your story I didn’t strive for knowledge, truth, and competition in terms of academia till much later in my life.
ReplyDeleteI can appreciate what you have gone through, and still must go through simply because no matter how much I feel we all progress, our world our caves keep changing.
I am absolutely fascinated with the intersection of two details in your story. The first is how the changed circumstances and environment compelled you to change your attitude towards and mode of life. Technically, the new environment was a controlled environment (and therefore by Plato's definition a cave), yet its conditions of control were expansion of knowledge--- which in your case was language acquisition. (An interesting subtext here, though, which you didn't go over in your blog was what brought you here? What were you after, and how did the migration and language acquisition develop out of what led you to come here.)
ReplyDeleteThe second detail of your story of great interest to me is how your mind opened through reading. It opened not just to the structure and use of the language, but what that reading exposed you to. At first I was curious about what actual texts may have had particular influence on you, but then I realized that this doesn't matter as much as your more pertinent point that it was knowledge in itself that made your mind develop to the plateau you are on now. (Check out the chapter in Malcolm X's autobiography called "Reading"-- it shares some poignant similarities to your story.) In a sense, this is a lesson in nearly pure objectivity and I wonder again how this aspect of your development relates to your personal story, the goals you originally had in mind and then their maturation to the character and outlook you practice now.
For Plato, adaptation and adjustment are the chief characteristics of the ascent from the cave, and of how we acquire "true knowledge", so you may find it beneficial to look into this aspect of your story with more detail. If you are interested in such, a couple movies about the development of an analytic and objective mind I'd recommend include (in order of personal preference) "Rear Window" by Hitchcock, "American History X", which is more socio-political, or "The Breakfast Club". Let me know if you'd like to discuss any of these and good work here Alexey!
I totally understand where you are coming from. My father was in the navy and our family relocated a lot to where ever he was stationed. In the beginning it's always difficult to acclimate yourself to the surroundings because it's such a culture shock and you're taken out of your comfort zone. Whenever my family and I would move, I would constantly have to put in the effort of meeting and making new friends. Sometimes I would hate it because it was hard work. But I'm grateful for the experience because it definitely broke me out of my box and allowed me to become extroverted. When we would move to a different country, I remember having a hard time getting around because I didn't know how to speak the native tongue and in the end, like you, I would stay at home and not go anywhere. But they always say the best way to learn a language is to just immerse yourself in it. After reading your blog, I think you're very eloquent in the way you write and express yourself that I would have never guessed that English is your second language. So I have to say that I'm glad to hear that you've taken that step in the right direction instead of staying in the "dark". A lot of people are afraid to do that but once you step into the light, life becomes easier and that person will find that each step in front of the other brings even more accomplishment.
ReplyDeleteIt seems as if you were in a cave while living your old lifestyle. You say that you did not see the value in education and that college was more of a social experience for you. You said that you were happy with this lifestyle at the time, just as the prisoners in the cave are content because they do not know any other life. Also, I can see how submersing yourself in an unfamiliar cultural where you cannot communicate can also be a cave of sorts. Once you moved to America you had to overcome a lot by first learning to communicate which led to you being able to find value in education.
ReplyDeleteThese two areas of your life in which you struggled seemed to come together to allow you to be enlightened. If you had not moved to a foreign country you would not have needed to learn another language which made education more of a priority. If you had not needed to put the effort into learning a new language, you would have not found the value in education. As you said before, your environment was not responsible for these struggles but it was your own will that brought you to enlightenment.