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If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.
That’s a quote from William Blake’s 1793 poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
I’m John Fanning and this is the Create with John Fanning podcast.
How’s it goin out there. Hope all is well.
This is Episode 15 of my series of episodes on Imagination creativity, based around my book Create.
Last time I spoke about capitalism and creativity. Today I’m going to talk about Doors and the Cave. As I’ve said in nearly every episode I see Doors as a metaphor towards Imagination and creativity, opposite to what I’ve called Walls, which I see as a metaphor that leads us away from the Imagination.
In the last episode I talked at length about capitalism, without getting into what I see as a creative answer to it. Well, I see Doors as the answer to Capitalism, as they open in the direction of positivity, of opening up, of growth, of inspiration, of human amelioration, of Imagination. And as I said also mentioned in episode 5 on Imagination and creativity, the ‘creativity’ of merchant bankers is not a Door, but a Wall. Their ‘creativity’ is easily defined: it’s greed.
The Door of Imagination is a potential which we all possess. It can be opened in a vast array of human activities – anything from traditional art and craft work (writing, painting, composing and so on) to sports and leisure activities (baseball or establishing a garden) or in other less obvious cultural forms (flower arrangement, say, or tea ceremonies).
At best, this is what a Door symbolizes, an opening to positive creation and imagination, an opening through every Wall, away from the illusionary security of fear, into aesthetic, ritualistic and symbolic creation. The key to the door is the Imagination, not the creativity of greed on Wall Street. Yes, Wall Street. A street of Walls. You become a creative insider on that street. You become a creative outside when you walk through the door of the Imagination with its many paths and streets.
In literature, Doors are everywhere. In the arts. Allegorical. And metaphorical. They signify change, openings.
Getting back to the Blake quote I opened with,
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.
But the text, the words, are so insightful. How we’re all in search of the infinite, if we could only clean the Doors of perception instead of closing them so that all we see are the chinks of light through the cracks in our cavern.
Plato called Blake’s cavern the Cave, another wonderful metaphor which I’m going to get into in a minute.
The point though for both is that the Door turns into a Wall a barrier to the light. If we don’t go out the Door of the cavern then we’re left in darkness to look through the narrow chinks, like Plato’s prisoners who only see the shadows of reality on the Cave wall.
I had a classics lecturer who loved Plato. Any chance he got he’d bring Plato up. And his favorite? The allegory of the Cave. He’d enthusaistically lecture about a hundred of us at eleven o’clock in the morning, hungover — us, not him:
“Plato has the character, Socrates, tell the story of some people chained to the wall of a cave since birth. They face a blank wall. They watch shadows on the wall, from stuff passing in front of a fire behind them. They give names to these shadows. The shadows become the prisoners’ reality. An escapee comes to realize, by the light, that the shadows are not reality. He can understand a different reality, rather than the fabricated one the prisoners still believe. But when he goes back to tell them his revelation, they don’t believe him. In fact, they think he’s crazy!”
At this point some of the other students woke up because the old man had started shouting.
“Why?” he shouted, excited. “Because they know no other reality than the shadows! Socrates says the philosopher is like one of the prisoners who frees himself from the Cave. He also says the other prisoners will kill anyone who attempts to drag them out of the Cave. Isn’t that an amazing allegory, gentlemen?”
Some of the students had fallen asleep again. I was wide awake. Why? Because this allegory fascinated me, as it still does today. We’re all prisoners to our own perceived reality — one that is influenced, even constructed and manipulated, by society — PR firms, corporations, government bodies. We not only see a “shadow play” reality; we ourselves are shadows. The Walls of the Cave which inhibit us from creating our own reality are figurative, but very literal too.
Creation is when an individual, a creator decides to change their reality, and that of their field, and walks out the Door of the Cave, the cavern. They have a life changing experience, which then becomes life-changing for the rest of us.
Is this not what some call the purpose of life, to offer an expression of a field to the rest of the world after investigating it from a personal perspective as deeply, internally, as we can, and then to share it with others? If a creator discovers a deeper nature amidst all the pressures of society then they can express their field of creation in the best of forms. These creators assimilate as much as they can from their field, physics, art, business, and they get so good at it, they enlarge it. They become Socrates’ escaped philosopher — an inspired, imaginative creator. The creator imagines a new reality, creates a new reality, by leaving the darkness of the cave, by walking through the door, to create.
You too can escape, but nobody can drag you out. It’s like the old adage, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. It’s not easy. Some people in certain parts of the world will still actually try to kill you if you try to escape. In the end though, we have to get up and walk out into the light ourselves, as the other prisoners do later on in “The Republic”.
It’s difficult. You’ll be blinded when you first step out the Door into the light, when you open your perception. You’ll be confused, but it’s simply part of the process. With time, your “senses” get used to the new impressions, images. You get used to the new world you have created by walking out the Door.
So thanks for listening. I started with a quote from an English poet and painter and as usual I’m going to end with an Irish proverb. This one means:
God never closed one door without opening another.
Níor dhún Dia doras riamh nár oscail Sé ceann eile.
This podcast is supported by you the listener via my Patreon page. If ya want to support the podcast and help me get paid for doing it then please head over to patreon.com/johnfanning where you can get early and ad free access as well as extra episodes when ya sign up. Ifya can afford it then give me the cost of a price of a cup of tea or pint once a month. Ifya can’t afford it that’s grand too, ya can listen for free, but please subscribe to it on iTunes or wherever you listen to it and leave a review on itunes too or wherever ya listen to it and let your friends know about it so the listenership grows. Thank you! And thanks for listening. If you’re looking for more episodes you can find them on all the usual places like iTunes – or on my website at johnfanning.me under “podcast” where I’ve put up overview transcripts with links to all the people and ideas I mention. If you’re into social stuff and you’re looking to engage with me one-on-one, check me out on twitter @fanning_j and instagram @ johnfanning_. It’s been great sharing stuff with you today so until next time take care out there and be benevolent when you can!
Slán libh agus go n-éirí an bóthar libh.