Metaphor of the Room with Glass Walls

Nez: Imagine that you have been kidnapped and taken blindfolded to a well-lit room. All walls are made of glasses, but outside the walls is pitch-black; therefore, no one can see what lies outside the walls. There is a glass door at the end of the room. How would you feel there? You gaze at darkness outside the glass wall to see something to no avail. Your imagination starts to work hard to understand where you are. You may think that you are in an moving train. You may think that you are at the top of a high-rise or in the middle of a dessert. You may think wild animals outside the walls are waiting for you. You may think this is a practical joke, and your loved ones are waiting outside to laugh at you, or with you. You may think a variety of things, some good and some bad.
You are constantly looking for clues. You to interpret everything. The great extent of uncertainty gradually exhausts your mind. You want to relax. You want to enjoy your stay in this large waiting room. As time passes, you meet other people in this large waiting room, and you ask them about their opinions. Some tell you naive, infantile, or unbelievable stories about what exists outside of the glass walls. Others tell you that they do not know.
If you are smart, you realize nobody knows what is outside. You also realize that what individuals believe about the outside the walls affects their feelings in daily life in the room.
As decades and centuries pass, the smart come up with different definitions for the unknown world outside those glass walls. They realize that definition chosen for the world outside the glass walls will affect the quality of the world inside the waiting room. These definitions gradually evolve to provide the best feeling for and highest harmony among people in the waiting room. The smart even go so far as to paint the glass walls to cover uncertainty and anxiety caused by not knowing what lies outside. Painting the glass walls help them forget that they cannot see and know what is outside those glass walls. However, something else also happens. The murals on the walls introduce different future scenarios (heaven or hell) for different course of actions. Whoever decides about the paintings on the wall gains control over the reality inside the waiting room and becomes a lawmaker.
As time passes, layer-by-layer, new paintings are painted over old paintings, and all those paintings become more believable. People grow up with these descriptive paintings and never question what really is behind the walls. When everyone believes those comforting descriptions, then it seems even more believable. Some of these paintings become religions (painted by prophets and religious leaders). The answers to questions such as what you should do in the room and why the room exists lies outside the room. Religions paint comforting detailed paintings on the glass walls as if they know what lies behind the glass walls.
However, some realize that such paintings are mass delusions. They erase the paintings and discover the underlying glass walls with the unknown darkness behind them. Despite their brave effort, they are not educated and creative enough to paint their own paintings. They replace the mass delusions with something worse like nihilism and depression. After all, it is not easy to replace well-thought paintings created by masters generation after generation (in order provide meaning and comfort in exchange for obedience). It is difficult to break free from a reality that a person has gotten used to since childhood. Facing the darkness behind the glass walls needs a fresh imagination, a new kind of creativity, and bravery. Stepping into a room with dark glass walls needs bravery, intelligence, and creativity.
The magnitude of possibilities, and the extent of freedom that come with erasing the paintings are overwhelming, even frightening. Only those who can understand the gravity of unknown, can overcome the fear of unknown, and have a powerful imagination become such painters. Only a few can erase those paintings and replace them with beautiful and coherent paintings. Nezman becomes such a painter.
Nezman realizes that all the previous paintings are primitive, infantile, and unimaginative. All those old paintings reflect what is inside the room, while the possibilities outside the glass walls are infinite.
Nezman paints the most beautiful paintings on the glass walls. The paintings that create the most beautiful, meaningful and pleasurable reality for him inside the waiting room.