Tag: andy baker

– In the latest Baker’s Dozen, Andy Baker analyzes the choices the castaways are making. Like many of you, I play a number of different roles in my life: I’m a writer, an English teacher, a husband and father… and a squash coach. (If you’re not familiar with squash, it’s a cousin of racquetball.) […]

We need to talk about the people we weren’t talking about, the castaways who weren’t getting confessionals, the players who are out there for just as many hours as the rest of ‘em, only they’re not getting camera time. In Book VII of The Republic, ancient Greek philosopher Plato imagines a conversation between his brother Glaucon and his teacher Socrates which outlines an analogy for human existence: Most of us are chained in a cave while shadows – cast by objects moving in front of the fire of “truth” – move on the blank wall in front of us. We can’t directly witness reality; all we can see are the flickering images of truth distorted by the process of projection. Only a philosopher, freed from her shackles, is able to perceive truth by looking right into the heart of the fire.