“Behold!” Plato wrote in Book VII of The Republic, the Allegory of the Cave. A few humans have been living in an underground cave for their entire lives, with their legs and necks chained to prevent any movement. Behind them is a fire blazing at a distance, which illuminates their shadows upon the wall. They can only see their own shadows, as well as the shadows of one another. It’s a “strange image”, and they are “strange prisoners”.
Like us, these prisoners are rendered to a world offered through their senses, a “poor copy” of the real world. By error, the prisoners are released. When liberated, they suffer from sharp pains from the glare of the fire behind them, from standing up and turning their back and walking around. They have a clearer vision of reality, in which they see shadows as poor resolution images of their own entities. The light will cause immense pain in their eyes, forcing them to look away from the objects of their vision. The shadows seem truer than the objects which are shown to them.
Now let’s say one of these prisoners are dragged up a steep ascent to outside the cave. They are held until they are forced to glare at the sun. Even though the prisoner will wince and glance away immediately, groaning in pain, he or she will eventually grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. The philosopher will come back to the cave to share what they have learned about the upper world. The philosopher will reveal to the rest of the cavepeople the truths of the world, the higher dimensions of seeing and feeling. But the rest of them, accustomed to their cave life, having only seen their low-resolution shadows on the wall, will scoff and reject the philosopher’s notions.
To Plato and Socrates, the idea of good is seen after effort, and is the “parent of light” in this visible world, the source of “reason and truth in the intellectual”. It takes effort, a desire to see reality for what it is, to fix one’s eye at the truth and to uncover what is revealed to us. It takes some pain, some difficulty, to open one’s eyes, figuratively speaking, and coming back to tell
others of the higher dimensions of reality, and to improve other’s lives as a result.
Socrates believed that all forms of learning is actually remembering. He argued that we were all born with infinite knowledge, but we lost this knowledge at birth. Our lives, then, are a journey of remembering what we have forgotten. This may seem strange and untrue, but in reality, there’s scientific truth to this philosophy. We all have unbelievable potential, but rarely do we ever reach the limit of our potential. Too often, we let the idea of personal limits prevent our journey of ever reaching those limits. We think our genetics work against us, so there’s no point in lifting weights. We think that we’ll never look like Kendell Jenner, so there’s no point of dieting. We think that we’ll never be the next Einstein of physics, so we don’t bother trying. The list goes on. We are capable of incredible things, beyond our wildest imagination, but it takes effort and time to reach our potential. It is beyond imagination, likewise, to think about all the things about this universe that could potentially fascinate you, the things that could be so gripping that it would make you revel at another dimension of life. You could be so many things, and your life is essentially an adventure to uncover all that you could be. Even becoming the best you can be at one thing is a sufficiently remarkable achievement worth praise and commendation.
So how do you uncover your dormant talents, abilities, beliefs, and thoughts? I’ll ground this discussion in the wisdom of a current Sillicon Valley entrepreneur and angel investor Naval Ravikant. In Almanack of Naval Ravikant, he shares what he believes is the guide to wealth and happiness, based on his extensive personal and entrepreneurial experiences. The digital age has democratized demand, such that the person who is the best at providing some good or service will be the successful one. The pathway to success, therefore, is to build and develop your own specific knowledge – to develop your unique combination of skillsets, beliefs, thoughts, and ideas that make you the best at delivering a solution to a problem that society faces. What you believe that problem is depends on your own specific knowledge – it may even be a problem that others may not realize but you do, based on your specific knowledge. If you can discover a way to solve that problem for others at scale, using your specific knowledge, you’ll be the best at the world at it and be the most successful you can be.
Looking at entrepreneurship this way, there’s a fascinating truth: there’s never been a more rewarding period of time to become intellectually curious. By exposing yourself to the depths of intellectual knowledge, meeting diverse people and building your skillsets, you can both uncover who you are and discover the pathway to develop your specific knowledge to unlock inordinate amounts of money and success.
We now have a framework to understand your collegiate education. You will almost certainly have the most academic flexibility to learn and study whatever you could possibly imagine. You will have the opportunity to meet the most diverse body of people you may ever have the chance see. You can be exposed to the greatest cornucopia of human creation, research, and intellectual studies that you may ever have. All of these sources can be tools for you to uncover your identity, to engage in creative processes, to develop your unique skillsets and identity, and to be the person that you could be.
Before we get into the exact steps that you can use at college to be the person that you could be, I want to give you a small sense of the divine power of creativity and creation that you have within you. In David Deutsch’s The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World, the physicist argues that humans have a unique divine-like power to create and use theories and models to transform nature using universal laws of physics and mathematics. In other words, we are the beginning of infinities, capable of understanding the laws that define the universe to transform potential into actualities.
He writes, “Like an explosive awaiting a spark, unimaginably numerous environments in the universe are waiting out there, for eons on end, doing nothing at all or blindly generating evidence and storing it up or pouring it out into space. Almost any of them would, if the right knowledge ever reached it, instantly and irrevocably burst into a radically different type of physical activity: intense knowledge-creation, displaying all the various kinds of complexity, universality and reach that are inherent in the laws of nature, and transforming that environment from what is typical today into what could become typical in the future. If we want to, we could be that spark.”
When Abraham Maslow was studying human potential and self-actualization, he understood human creativity not as a goal, but rather as a deeply embedded component of us all. We are all creators, using knowledge and interests to transform nature to create something new. He claimed, “We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle that anybody created anything.” To him and dozens of other humanists studying positive psychology, the question wasn’t “what fosters creativity” but rather why every single person is not reaching within us to create our fullest potential. To them, everybody has the near-infinite power to unlock creativity, innovation, and wisdom.
Have some respect for yourself. You’re capable of anything. There’s so much latent in you. You have to test yourself, explore the avenues, and learn what speaks out to you. Slowly build your specific knowledge, despite the difficulties you encounter. It’s the only way to make that tuition price tag worth it. Figure out where you belong, and how you can change your corner of the world. The coming chapters will use this framework – build your specific knowledge, uncover your potential, and become the best in the world at what you do – to give you advice. You should continue to refer to this framework as you read the advice that the coming chapters offer.
Let’s reinterpret the Allegory of the Cave, for our purposes. You’re living in a cave, that’s sheltering you from all that’s dormant within you. We all are living in our own caves. You can see shadows, low resolution images of the potential that you can be. It is up to you if you choose to exit that cave and see the light, to uncover and unlock the mysteries that surround yourself and this universe. It’s up to you to take the steps, to accept the momentary pain that’s involved with unlocking your divine power to create and transform. It’s up to you to share your discoveries with the rest of us, to benefit your community and the world as a result. Go out there. Discover. Learn about yourself. Leave the cave. Run, if you must. It’s okay if you get blinded by the light. Keep walking. “Remember” who you are, by figuring out who you could be.
Thanks for reading! Much love - Naman
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