Perspectives - Catu Berretta

While learning about Plato's Cave Allegory, we began discussing the idea of what it's like for someone who has infinitely more knowledge to relate to someone with a much lesser, more basic perspective. The way each sees the other will obviously be skewed. In Plato's Cave Allegory, the man that is dragged outside, after living his entire life inside the cave, is dumbfounded by the new reality he meets. His perspective grows immensely and suddenly, the life back at the cage seems terrible, and all he feels is pity for his fellow prisoners. So he returns to tell them of the wonderful things he saw, he learned, he understood. But the prisoners were unable to understand properly. All the saw was a strange shadow (the man's shadow) speaking of strange things they couldn't even begin to fathom (just as the man had before he'd left the cave). In their eyes, the man had lost his sight, despite the reality of the outside world being, he gained far more valuable insight. They each thought each other as ignorant, unknowledgable, and unable to see the true reality. This ideal echoed with me when looking back at my various returns to my homeland, Uruguay. I've always been a bit strange compared to my friends. Perhaps, it was because I had a mother with whom I constantly spoke English with, which led me to cultivate an American accent (unlike the rest of my classmates), helped by the constant viewing of American movies. While all my friends switched the language of the films we watched to Spanish Translated, I cringed at the idea of it and constantly begged we keep it in english. Aside from this, I simply did not fit in as well as my friends seemed to. However, I was still able to form a connection, to relate to them. Until I left.

The thing no one tells you about moving to a new country, whether it is due to your parent's job or whatever it may be, is that you when you go back, nothing is the same. This is the unavoidable, heart-breaking truth I came to terms with when going home to Uruguay after three years of living in Brazil and attending an international school. Sure, I had gone back before that multiple times and while I was always met with an uneasy feeling of not-belonging, I had brushed it aside, not wanting to face what was happening. Here are the facts: When you leave your home, and are immersed in different cultures and experiences, you will return to find that nothing has changed. The houses are still numbered the same, your friends still live 5-minute bike rides away from each other, and they still watch their movies in Spanish translation. It shouldn't be a problem. Except, the fundamental thing that has changed, that's made it impossible for you to go back, is you. 

While I may have struggled in the beginning of my yearly trips to my hometown, it was nothing like it is now. I don't understand my friends anymore, and they don't understand me. I sometimes feel pity for them, knowing they'll always be in their little world, probably going to the same university, marrying some guy and having children, only to send their children to the same school they went to and thus the cycle continues. I always knew that was not what I wanted. But it took me a long time to accept that maybe, it was okay that it was what they wanted. Obviously, I want to thrust them into the real world in regards to issues like feminism, racism and homosexuality and such. These topics are viewed in a very conservative manner and it saddens me to think of the way my female friends view themselves, for the only view they have is the one where women are shamed no matter what they choose and drunk teenage boys get to feel them up without consent. These issues I can't validate the different perspectives because I know they are wrong. But aside from those, I've been coming to terms that maybe they like their little worlds. And I don't wish to use little in a belittling way. Their worldview is small. Their lives are in one country, with one neighbourhood, one set of childhood friends that may have changed a bit but remained fundamentally the same. For a long time I never thought I should be the one who is pitied, but rather them. Yet it never occurred to me that perhaps they pitied me. I had left and come back, every year more Gringa. Unable to properly express myself in spanish, to understand the unspoken but elementary social cues of the Uruguayan upper-class adolescent groups, to have solid ground beneath my feet. Regardless, I have learned to respect their goals and wishes. Sometimes I am infuriated by their small-minded perspectives, but I try to remember that their environment, family and social surroundings, like the prisoners in the cave, have never offered anything to make them believe it's any different.