A broken plate is symbolic of a shattered dream.
A thing that, once allotted the freedom to fall and crash, can never be pieced back together to resemble what it once was,
regardless of the determination of our attempt.
We cannot look at a broken plate and piece it back together by reminiscing what once was.
We can never reattach the thousand fragments into something whole and usable, and although we can try fruitlessly to do so, we can never succeed because no matter how we connect the shattered pieces, we will still be eating off of a dysfunctional plate.
So, too, we cannot change what has gone and passed. We can only change our future;
will we try redundantly to make what's broken whole again? Or accept what is and move forward?
I think there are many ways a shattered plate is similar to shattered illusions; illusions of safety and comfort.
It is symbolic of broken relationships and things that cannot be unsaid.
A reminder of how monstrous humans can be.
It is symbolic of the soldier who has gone to war, and can never get it out of his mind. Death and destruction have built a community within his soul and he cannot make them leave. Therefore he is always at war, and can never be the man he once was; he os broken, and cannot be pieced back together.
A shattered plate is symbolic of our ceaseless destruction and how we can never repair what we have altered and changed; what we have corrupted.
It is symbolic of the ebb and flow of change that we must accept; the moving on from a thing that causes us harm towards a more sustainable future.
The falling plate is the apittimy of realization; the “holy shit” moment where we realize the bullshit we have fed ourselves, like the gorging down of food to fill a void that can only be filled by I-AM-NESS.
The broken plate at our feet reminds us of what we lack; perfection; an ineptitude for creating perfect moments…
For there is always that Clash…
The clash of a broken plate.