Work and Vocation - Essay Example

Introduction Human life is a product of childhood experiences that shapes his future life and reality and the two books (Ishmael Beah: A Long Way gone and Allegory of the Cave) will demonstrate this. Reality perception is greatly influenced by our childhood experiences and actions. I chose the two stories because they closely related to my personal life experiences and reality perception. Ishmael Beah: A Long Way gone Can someone rehabilitate a son who fought among the faded morals and survival boundaries during the extensively crucial, malleable periods of his development? This is Beah’s question to his audience. The story subjects audience to a different situation from their earlier experiences. We all watch media, bombarded by amazing war images, children five years old equipped with firearms, however looking at life via a detached changed lens does not provoke similarly feelings as reading Beah. His story starts with a concise but impressive account of his personal experiences prior to civil war at Sierra Leone that ruined his society. He was dominated by youthful ambitions, moving to a neighboring city to reveal to his viewers the next rapping sensation, Beah and his colleagues. In middle of his story, viewers are immersed into a very antithetical condition, his initial war encounter, a mother cradling her child, mainly dismissive of the gunshots, which riddle the weak body of her child. In the greatest part of the story, Beah and his colleagues idly strolls the countryside without direction and confused. They later realize that the civil war had both physical scars on them and has brought strife among community members causing mistrust in an initially united people, (Beah Ishmael 55). In an attempt to reconcile his actions with survival agency, Beah constantly fights his fate, every time risking war inevitabilities. Beah is challenges his emotions and the positivity he had at first slowly became loss. “After suspecting that he would be seen, Beah stopped running.” Beah is later used to ruin the control trials of rebel officers. The growth from childhood to adulthood within two years is unimaginable, because instead of playing cards, enjoying crushes of childhood and learn mathematics, firearms, drugs and misery dominate his adolescent period. However, just like other over three thousand teenage soldiers, Beah quickly adopts his new livelihood; emotionally rationalizing has behavior with war period campaigns of his superiors. Beah’s guilt immunity grows with time, dismissing all emotion senses he achieved from murder. Later after initiation to the soldier hood, his experiences had extensively changed him from a sympathetic person to a killing machine, (Beah Ishmael 59). Viewers witness Beah’s life experiences, which are considered a practical survival strategy of humans. Finally, Beah survives the war without any physical harm and perseveres through the rides of emotions, which once overwhelmed him – “tomorrow’s uncertainty, the unimaginable acts inflected on people by people, and the desire to show the mortal existence of his family.” As he says, one of the disturbing aspect about his voyage, mentally, physically and emotionally was his uncertainty of the ending point of his journey. His story amazes the reader and fills a crucial void in contemporary literature on the challenges that Sierra Leone’s rival as views through the lens of a child. Additionally, whereas childhood soldier is not the main Sierra Leone children, it is imperative to analyze the meaning and implications of the story to freedom fighters of today. Allegory of the Cave The book reflects a meaningful metaphor that compares people’s reality perception and believes and the thesis behind the story is the fundamental assumption that people’s perceptions are not perfect reflections of the actual forms that consequently show reality and truth. Plato forms a cave to sentence lawbreakers and force them to look at the cave’s front walls. The multiples meanings derived from the “Cave” are demonstrated from the start with presence of convicted prisoners in the darkness of the cave, who are bound to the cave floor with their heads tied not see what happens behind them, (Plato 123). Puppeteers stand behind the victims, covered by parapet, casting the shadow on the cave walls that the victims consider the truth. Whereas the allegory itself is not the tale but the dialogue between the two aforementioned fellows, they cannot be considered as mutually exclusive because they are not. In the Socrates description of the cave and the prisoners’ condition, he proves that the prisoners’ view of reality will be in inherently mistaken, because the audience knows that the puppeteers are behind them casting object shadows to actual reality and since prisoners cannot turn their heads they only know the shadows that they consider and perceive as the reality. This is crucial to the story creation as it indicates what people consider true at birth is not the reality depending on their unusual reality interpretations. Therefore, as far as allegory is concerned, the overall term of people language is not physical items names they see but the names of invisible things to them, their minds perceptions and believes – imaginations. After the release, the prisoners are compelled to observe the fire and items that initially directed their reality perceptions, and therefore realized that these current pictures in their front are now agreed upon reality forms. Plato considers truth vision as aching to prisoners eyes, and how they would like to go back and observe what they have often considered desirable and attractive truth acceptance- this is seen as belief. Additionally, the pleasure of the earlier perceived, and uncertainty of strange external world lead to prisoners being compelled to move the steep cave ascent and walk out into the shining sun. After the prisoners’ immersion in the rays of the sun, Socrates continues to describe his fright, blurredness, and bewilderment to the earlier told real objects. The prisoner’s response will be distinction between the reflections and the shadows, after this their visions adjusts to the light of the sun and they start to see objects and humans in their own appearance, exclusive of any medium. When prisoners observe both the sun and the sky and realize it as the origin of everything, they have perceived the Good form. This marks the peal because the initially blind prisoner to Good form and basic form would now recognize truth and reality and thus understand is achieved. Therefore, taking prisoners back to the cave – after their newfound awareness of their understanding and knowledge- would metaphorically be immersing them into the dark world again to face other chained prisoners. Therefore, Allegory shows both people’s reality misconceptions and Plato’s image of a strong leader, (Plato 130). The prisoners are who go back to the cave are supposed to live with other prisoners as the eye or leader of others because he can see well than them. He should show goodness, be truthful, and take care of his colleagues because he understands truth forms. He should take responsibility as a true leader – Plato’s description of leadership’s concept and just community. The Cave Allegory story shows a complex example that people should experience in their understanding and lives. The four thoughts steps together with human development process constitutes people route to total awareness in which the moral and extemporary will achieve, and after attaining this shall guide the public. The story demonstrates the crucial function of reality in people’s existence, and shows how people’s reality understanding can lead to a qualified society leader and governor. Conclusion In conclusion, therefore, the two stories demonstrates the crucial function of reality and childhood experiences in people’s existence, and shows how people’s reality understanding can lead to a qualified society leader. This is because my childhood story (the fact that I grew up in a warlike environment) shaped my reality. I made me believe that fighting is the only way to achieve freedom. Works cited Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Print. Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone. London: Harper Perennial, 2008. Print. Plato, . The Allegory of the Cave. Brea, CA: P & L Publication, 2010. Print. Plato, . Plato: Allegory of the Cave. Plymouth, NH: Simply Media, 2006. Sound recording. Read More