I’ve never read The Republic by Plato. My daughter, Abbie, exposed me last night to Plato’s cave analogy. What I took away was that much of what we see and experience is really only shadows from a greater truth. I was on the couch in the living room and in front of me was the wooden chest that serves as our coffee table. What I saw was wood, but I realized this is a shadow of the relationships and emotions between my grandfather and the Cubans he worked with. I know nothing about the Cuban who made this tool chest before my grandfather moved back to the United States, but I think something more than time and labor went into those dove tail joints.