I will describe a scenario of what a great mind once wrote and that most of us in the world fit into.

Imagine a fish tank, long and rectangular. Add the water to the whole tank but put a wall of glass halfway along the tank so we have, in effect, two tanks. Add the fish to one half of the tank and leave the other half empty of fish.

These fish will swim happily up and down the length and width of their half of the tank until they die and float upwards to where? In fish heaven? Or possibly in fish hell?

If, after a while, you were to remove the glass partition, you would be very surprised at the result. Were you expecting a mass exodus? It won’t happen. The fish would continue swimming happily up and down the length and width of their half of the tank until they die and float upwards, to where? In fish heaven? Or possibly in fish hell?

Why don’t they swim into the empty half of the tank? Well, some will take a look but most will turn back and continue with their life as they always lived it. Swimming happily up and down the length and width of their half of the tank until they die

One or two, however (is that you?) will realise that there is another world in the other half of the tank and will venture out to explore. They soon come to see that instead of the same bland dreary old foods they have been living on all their lives, there is an abundance of exotic foods and sweet fruits the like of which they had never ever imagined.

If one or more of them dared to return to the previous place of existence to try to convince their old friends to join them in this new wonderful world, they would be totally spurned and maybe even locked up in fish prison, never to see that special place where anything is possible and imagination rules.

Of those fish that would not venture out of their half  we must ask the question why. Why do they not wish to see this ‘other’ world? The answer is known as PRE-COGNITIVE COMMITMENT. They are all committed to what they know and cannot envision a different world. Put another way it is ‘The essence of a world view that lies deep in the inner recesses of the self’ is what keeps them. Did not Plato write something similar?

Peter Charalambos