Plato’s ideal world consists of perfect items. Those items are
not present in our visible world, still we can get a feeling of
these perfect items by the world around us. We are living
around those items—only the proportion of the perfectness
varies. We recognize these forms, and we desire for more.We
would like them to stay with us, forever. Our endless quest is
to reach for these ideal items and surround ourselves by them.
Our life is a quest for ideal forms that cannot stay in a mate-
rial format but can reflect parts of life’s perfect existence, for
example, a quest for the Holy Grail, which is not a material
kind of quest. Therefore, the material sought is eternal—ideas
can only be found in their original form.
Some people remind us about humbleness, beauty, passion,
sympathy, love, intelligence, humor, selflessness, and so on.
These ideas are reflected in the person. We feel that these
items are something noble and very familiar to us. We are
naturally attracted to and moved by these ideas. Similarly, we
can find the same forms and ideas in the world around us.
The nature is always beautiful, and our humanmade art cap-
tures the essence of many timeless shapes of ideas. Still, like
Plato said, we cannot capture the formless into a physical
shape entirely. Only parts of it can be present, at best.
Next time you meet a person or see an object that captures
some fraction of the ideal form, ask yourself this question: Are
you attracted to the person/object or to the form it represents?
This is something worth considering for a while. If it is really
the person or item, then it should not matter if it is changing
over time—maybe reflecting less or decaying the ideal form
that caught your attention in the first place. Our disappoint-
ments in life reflect the fact that we fall in love with the idea
and not the object it represents. When the object itself
changes we are taken by surprise and long for the idea it used
to resonate.
Ideas and forms are eternal. They are always present but
they cannot be captured in time and space. They can be expe-
rienced only as they come and when they come—in that very
moment—the rest is pure illusion and shadows.
This is the original text, and an edited version can be found in the Fragments of Reality -book.
