The Shadows of Reality We are like the people in Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". The people chained in the cave were forced to watch the projections and shadows cast on the wall. Since the shadows were the only thing they had seen, they perceived them as the “truth”. Today our “shadows” have become the media, death and pain that influence what we believe is the “truth”. Media, death and pain are quite common in today's world and we encounter them quite often. Very few have reached the true “reality” governed by thought and reason. Life is a struggle where the goal is to achieve enlightenment and see “reality”. We have a partial vision of life because we are imperfect. Our notion of reality is distorted by the veil of ignorance that surrounds us. Most of our information on current events comes from the media. Newspapers, along with television news and radio stations, publish their view of events to the general public. Their ideas arise mainly for the benefit of their sponsors and colossal multinationals. The general public in turn shapes an idea from the contaminated ideas of the media. Either we understand what they publish as the truth, which is the most likely case, or we don't believe it completely. For example, an article in the associated press states that “2012 is the year the cosmic clock finally stops at zero days”. Because of this statement and many others like it, the website "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" is receiving emails from fourth graders who say they are "too young to die." Meanwhile, the Mayans near the Yucatan Peninsula think the idea of ​​the end of the world is ridiculous and have more "real problems like rain to worry about." Television news is another example of propaganda. We... middle of paper... have a “utopia”. The shadows from which each person must fight to free themselves are cast by the media and their sponsors, by death, by pain and, ultimately, by fear. Each individual is a pioneer who must have the initiative and courage to turn to the mouth of the cave and seek the light. We are ultimately turned away from the light because it is the easiest option. The state of denial that almost everyone goes through is only the first test we are subjected to in the process of seeing the light and emerging from the cave. We become imprisoned by our own beliefs, whether those beliefs think that all men are bad apples, that my beloved son is not dead, simply disappeared, or that my husband was not murdered because he could not harm a fly. Our society today is suffocating with shadows and our task is to shed light in an attempt to dispel those shadows.