Plato, Tim, and I

Plato, Tim, and I

When there’s a question regarding life, the changes throughout life, and life unchanging, I turn to philosophy. The quote in The Things They Carried relates and supports the ideals of Plato, an adroit man of brilliance and skillful ability regarding the difference of change externally compared to the absence of changes internally. I support O’Brien’s beliefs regarding that he was unchanging; he was still the same little boy he was except now physically and mentally older from the element of time. However, time does not age the soul, time’s strength can only plague the external realm through its wrath of aging; time is entrapped only to the physical realm, but the outer change is denied access to the heart and soul.
Plato’s philosophy is that there is perfection and remains constant, or unchanging, beyond the matrix in which we live in. This means that externally everything around us is imperfect because the physical world is changing us. However, inside every object, a paragon of everything exists. This means that there is a perfect apple, a perfect desk, and a perfect human in all individual classifications. On the inside of every object perfection exists, which includes the soul, heart, and spirit; they are the constants inside human beings. This means that these internal bound intangibles remain absolute. In O’Brien’s quote, he believes even though he is physically older, he hasn’t changed at all. He writes, “ Inside the body, or beyond the body, there is something absolute and unchanging” (236). He proves the support of Plato’s philosophy, and I also support it also in its entirety.

I believe that through the philosophy of Plato that human beings do not change internally. You cannot rearrange the mien or psyche of an individual or any living thing. You can pick a leave off a tree, and you can watch the color change, the physicality crumble, and the external wither, however, you still have a leaf. The leaf never changes internally because the leaf internally can never disappear. If the physicality of this externally dead leaf doesn’t disappear off the face of earth just because it is physically dead, is it truly dead on the inside? No. I made this realization on a walk in the woods one autumn evening when I picked up a dead leaf and noticed just because it was dead physically to my eye, it still existed. I believe this is with all life forms that internally perfection and everlasting life exists. It is only the human eye is limited to what it can see. We only can see the shadows of everything that exists which is in the physical realm where time plagues life through change, but on the inside, time cannot harm anything therefore, there is a paragon inside everyone that never can change.
I believe this because as a teenager of eighteen I have experienced a series of changes throughout my life. I mentally am becoming more independent of taking care of myself preparing for the secular realization of the world. I know that my thoughts have drastically changed within the past year or two. Right now I have ideas of my future of going to college, falling in love, and living out the rest of my life with the man that I love. I know it sounds a little jocular, but I even have these yearnings to get married, live in a house together, and have children with the man that I amorously love. Now, let’s take it back even just two years ago, I had no thoughts that somebody would love me, heck, consider even marrying me! I had thoughts of just surviving high school and trying to imagine whether I would get a blue ribbon in the next hunter/ jumper equestrian competition.
I know mentally, the changes I have endured throughout the past years have been mammoth, however, I still believe that I am the same Caitlin on the inside. My personality that is effulgent with amity, my spirit that houses my religious beliefs, and my heart still has the same capacity for love remains constant. Even though my love now is beyond the Philo love for my family, I now display Eros and Agape for one person. Also, even though my love now lies on a significant other and not entirely on family, does not mean my capacity for love has changed. This is because these intangibles cannot be plagued through time and age. My love will never die; my spirit for religion will never wither; my spirit will never be re-sculpted. I will always be the same little girl with the bright smile and spirited walk on the way to the bus on my first day of kindergarten. I have the same smile, the same mind, and the same eyes. My eyes see the world differently, my smile now expunged of my innocent baby teeth, my brain impassive about the sacred teddy bear I had to sleep with every night, and my eyes falling for love; a vow I had made to myself saying that love was “icky,” and that I never would.
Yes, this is sincerely a tough thing to talk about as it brings tears to well in my eyes. The pain burns with doleful intensity; my tears building allowing my vision to become obscured through the warmth of tears. I am looking at my first grade pictures, and envy the little girl I used to be, but never can be again physically. I see a little Halloween costume of a clown I used to be. Oh, how it hurts to see something so adorable and innocent I used to be. It evokes so much doleful sadness that I used to be that cute little girl with the little painted nose, the little hat that sat on my head, now only able to sit on my wrist. I used to wear that costume, my meek little body fitting into something I could probably now not even get an arm into. These sentimental memories accentuate, the pain harboring inside my little heart, struggling with the emotional burden that is drowning my very feelings. I feel the oxygen seeming to be limited as I gasp for breath, but finding myself to sink amongst the strength of time that then envelopes me back underneath the darkness of time. I feel as if being suppressed by a raging river’s strength, (time) but only realizing that the source of this very river, this very water, is in fact my own tears. How I could cry so hard and want to strain all those tears to drizzle, trickle, fall, torrentially down pour; I want them to bring a catharsis; I want to be ridden of the pain so I can relax the tension of my feelings so dilated with pain.
I now recall these changes brought forth by time that tumultuously ripped me from my childhood absence, and my sense of imagination that became stripped through the horrific process maturation. I wipe the tears, little reservoirs of pain dripping down my face, and then disappear into the world somewhere, doubting of they even exist once they’ve fallen, but then I think to myself, have I truly gone? Couldn’t I still be a child inside, could that little girl with that bright smile and spirited walk still be there inside me? I have to believe in Plato and in O’Brien’s words that we are still that little innocent child full of wonder and imagination. We don’t truly become stripped of this wonder unless we allow ourselves to be barren. We must learn to flock together when we feel all the world has failed; we must be strong and let the memories consume us. We must welcome this mellifluous stream of memories and allow them to never leave us, because if we let our inside intangibles die, we let ourselves die.
Plato’s words speak of so much strength to me regarding life. Whenever I am feeling weighted by solemnity, I turn to philosophy to help reestablish my strength. I believe that both O’Brien and I both turn to Plato for support how even though we change physically, we never change. We never are truly gone. I forever can be that little girl with the bright smile and spirited walk. I am her forever. I can always be my daddy’s little girl. Nobody else can ever be her. If I don’t want that image to ever fade, than I must never allow it to go away. I must never accept the false mind set that once the physical is changed, you must internally be changed. I will forever have the whimsical attitude of that little girl with the bright smile and spirited walk on the way to the bus for my first day of kindergarten. Time’s grasp can only make changes so far, and it is beyond time’s reach to put a finger on what lies inside.