It is only through a man’s deliberate attempt to understand his world and ultimately himself that he is able to achieve a truly meaningful life. Ignorance saves a person from the tedious process of knowing the answers to every difficult question, yet it is ignorance that imprisons the person to what is superficial and illusionary. In today’s market-driven society, people easily fall into the trap of the same run-of-the-mill desire for material things and for the glitz and vivid colours of the media. Their blind adherence to seek material and physical pleasures prevents them from breaking away from such a cycle. This is not a new phenomenon. Socrates had addressed it two thousand years ago. He said that most men cannot see beyond the illusions of life and are stuck with the shallow and false appearances of the world at the surface level. They are like men chained to the ground inside the caves since childbirth and are unable to plumb the true meaning of what they see. However, once a person is set free to investigate the outside world, he will at once begin to perceive reality in all its overwhelming plenitude. From there he would be able to pursue a life, which is full of meaning and significance and would thus achieve lasting happiness. True leaders are those who are able to leave the cave of darkness of their conditioning and find light in the form of achieving their own individuality. Their transformation from darkness to light would influence fellow human beings to follow their way of leading life.
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