"Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others. (Buddha)" This quote applies in the present, it just isn't followed. People are always told as they are growing up to work as a team to solve problems and reach a common goal. People can work together to reach a common goal, but the individual needs to realize when they have reached something and found out something about themselves that has not been seen before. In the movie GATTACA Vincent knows that he can be great, but no one gives him a chance because of his genetic makeup; and Jerome is destined to be a very great individual but isn't happy. In Allegory of the Cave based on everything around the prisoners they had to become curious to understand that there was a better world out there, and all they had to do was see it. A person's individuality is needed in a society because in order to know the life that one wants, they must understand their individuality.
             In GATTACA, when Vincent was born the doctors immediately told his parents that he had a very slim chance to outlive his parents. As he got older he would grow as much as the other kids to certain points and then everyone else grew past him and became stronger than him. His brother was genetically made to be the best of the genes that were available, he was better than Vincent at school, sports, anything else he wanted to he could be better than his brother at.
             Vincent had always wanted to go to outer space but he was told that he never could because he wasn't "the normal" person that the new standards had made for people. It was hard for him to understand that he could never amount to what everyone else was but Vincent ran away to better understand what he could do. However he had one thing that had been lost ever since genetics started to be manipulated. He had heart. Since people were made up to be the best they can be they were always told they were the best, and they nev...