In both Cathedral and King Lear, they present a significant truth; that sight is sometimes only for those that can't see. In the Cathedral, it takes the blind man to teach a seeing man to see. In King Lear, Gloucester looses his eyes before he able to see at all.
What can be taken from this, is that in order to fully see something you must give up on only sight. In the world today, things appear better than they may actually be.
An historical example would be how in the Reagan administration, he lowered the effective tax rate, which at a first sight seemed to be a great idea with only benefits; the only clear choice, similar to how in the "Cathedral" the narrator seemed black and white in the early stages of the story. Now looking back, many of us our blind to this benefit and see how in reality he closed co many loop-holes in the tax code that he really raised taxes. In King Lear, Gloucester trusted Edmund with his life which turned out to be the wrong choice; it was fake, similar to these tax cuts.
Another example is the cause of the financial collapse of 2008. The mortgages that were in reality junk were being passed off as great investments. The investors just blindly invested. Once people discovered that these investments were junk the whole industry went bust. It took an entire financial crash for them to see just like how Gloucester lost his eyes, Lear lost his kingdom, and the man from the "Cathedral" lost his relationship with his wife before they began to see.
Now coming to terms with this, there will always be things that I am blind to and it is up to me maneuver around them; even though I cannot see them. I will have to try to look at things from more ways than one. Additionally exposing myself to many levels, such as talking to the metaphoric blind man that can see what I blind to.
Insightful, Alex. I'm impressed.
ReplyDeleteYou make a really good point here: just because you can see doesn't necessarily mean you can "see." And yes, I know I sound like a fortune cookie, but hear me out. It seems to me that the more confident people are in their ability to see life for what it really is, the less they actually can. I think this is because the overconfidence ends up causing people to stop looking, because they think they're so awesome they don't need to. And when they stop looking, they stop seeing. Meanwhile, a blind person who acknowledges that they're blind doesn't just resign themself. Oh no, childrens. A blind person who acknowledges that they're blind tries as hard as they can to see their life, and their world, and the effort they put in is far more fruitful than what an overconfident seer could hope for. At least, that's the way I see it.
(Ha! You SEE what I did there? Woo!! EYE'm on a roll! I can't SEE any stop to this; I could go on all day!)