Cage

When asked his philosophy of life, John Cage replied, “Get yourself out of whatever cage you find yourself in.”  That someone named Cage speaks of cages provides an interesting possible meaning to this statement.  But beyond that, the statement is intriguing.  What are these cages, and how does one get out of them?   

Obviously they are metaphorical cages – states of mind that we get stuck in.  But a mental cage is only a cage if you think it a cage.  So the only way out of a mental cage is to transform your view, so that what had seemed a cage now seems a freedom.  Thus it would seem that trying to extricate yourself from the cage you find yourself in could be just another kind of mental cage.  The more we try to extricate our selves, the more cage-like our mental state might become.

I would be more inclined to say, “whatever cage you find yourself in, transform it into your freedom.”