“Bee in a Bottle”

Have you ever watched a bee buzzing around the back of an empty soda bottle, struggling for life and freedom, only to perish facing the bottom of the bottle?  The bee was fatally faithful to its instinctive illusion that the way to freedom and liberation is towards the brightest light at the rear.  The bee only had to turn around and exit at the top or opening. In the famous myth of the cave, Plato perceives only shadows of the eternal realities flickering on the wall of the cave.  But gradually he can be drawn out and achieve enlightenment and liberation by accustoming his mind to the divine light. In my analogy to Plato’s allegory, where men are prisoners of the ignorance and obscurity of their minds, the “Bee in the

Bottle” died victim to its own instincts.  The great distinction is that only humans, employing great courage, can attain true liberation from their illusions and consequent actions.  No emancipation proclamation and no constitutional freedom of expression can match the individual’s courage to freely examine his and society’s norms as a means of achieving liberation.  Do not struggle for your entire life, faithful to your beliefs, only to die at the closed end of your open bottle; give yourself the courage to challenge your beliefs. (mcg 1991)