The Cave

Today I am lost. I wandered up a canyon with my dad for a couple of hours as we taught each other microeconomics, burrowing into its depths and raising its dark questions. I went to Barnes and Noble and finished my book on economics, SparkNoted Dante's Inferno and got a little bit into a book on ethics.

But it all strikes me as... vast. Neverending. And directionless. I have to wonder - what if Virgil never arrived to save Dante from his aimless confusion? What if, barred by beasts and his own lack of knowledge, he wandered through the oppressive forest, unable to find his path to Paradise, ad eternum?

Maybe life is a grand quest for learning. Maybe education does constitute the steps to an attainable Parnassus. But maybe this existence is nothing but an innavigable forest, and maybe I am a lone child, so bewildered be his solitary plight that he at last has abandoned the search for divine reward, seated himself in the dark woods and commenced to examine the scenery. Perhaps there is no God above or hell beneath, or, if there is, perhaps there is no guided tour - no Virgil to conveniently appear in my time of need.

No, fellow wanderers, this is no time for speculation. Pondering what's on the outside of this cave won't get me out if it. Only a fixed determination to tear my eyes away from the shadows on the wall and crawl out of this cell will see me through. But it well may be that, having crawled my way out of this cavern, I will find there is only another enveloping it, and another beyond that.

But precursive faith dictates that I cannot believe it so to be. I must shake off these chains of doubt and step out of the shadows or have no hope but to forever remain in darkness. And if, at the end of one lifetime's sojourn in this world, I am still entrenched in these caverns of existence, I can say that at least - at least - I spent my life trying.