April 19
Whoever steps out of the cave into the light is at first dazzled and longs to go back to the shadows. Only little by little does the eye grow used to it and see what is real.
The Republic (freely rendered)
Listening mode
Whoever steps out of the cave into the light is at first dazzled and longs to go back to the shadows. Only little by little does the eye grow used to it and see what is real.
Sometimes someone tells you something about yourself that you can no longer fail to hear. That in conversation you like to finish other people's sentences, say. In the days that follow you talk worse than before. You catch yourself mid-interjection, stop, wait too long, and the conversation stalls because you are speaking and watching yourself do it at the same time.
The unease of this period is easily misunderstood. What you miss is not the error but the ease it allowed you. The old picture of yourself was inaccurate, but you could move about in it without thinking. The new one is closer to the truth and still strange to you. For a while you can do less with what is right than you could before with what was inaccurate.
There is no going back, all the same. You can wish you had never heard the remark, but now it listens in on every conversation. It does not grow quieter because you pay attention to it.
At some point someone has finished speaking, and you only notice afterwards.
