Listening to Socrates

Socrates was a smart guy. If you doubt that you should check out some of his thinking in the dialogues of Plato. He spent most of his time hanging out on the streets with his friends discussing the MAPOL (meaning and purpose of life). It's valuable, in my opinion, to explore some of his conclusions after years of conversations and study. One of his most famous quotes is "The Unexamined Life is not Worth Living". Another famous one is "Know Thyself:" It's worth spending a little time considering these statements.

We need to start any quest for learning about ourselves with the realization that we don't really know ourselves. We ascribe certain abilities and traits to ourselves and imagine that we are one way or another. We live our lives under many illusions. The main one is that we believe that we already do know ourselves. We believe that we have made choices in the past and that we can make choices in the future, when in fact most of the things that happen to us are a result of accident. We believe that we are consistent in our thinking and that we are the same person each day. In fact we are very inconsistent and we have many different personalities, each of which believes that it is who we really are.

The view that we don't know ourselves and that before we can progress in our lives and reach any level of happiness or contentment we need to get to know ourselves is one of the consistent threads of thought that runs through the thinking of all religions and philosophies. All the problems in the world can be traced to this simple and undeniable fact. We don't know ourselves and because we act without any real knowledge of who we are and what we need we are capable of any action, even the most irrational and self-destructive.

When you really begin to understand this about the human condition, you can begin to appreciate the "Terror of the Situation". We are living in a world that for the most part consists of people who are out of control. Under the right conditions they are capable of doing anything, and justifying their actions with some belief system that has them hypnotized into believing that they really do know who they are and what are the right things to do.

I don't want to paint too negative a picture. Matter of fact what I am describing here is usually hidden information. Most people are not ready or willing to hear it or understand it. There is actually the possibility that we can escape from this situation and create a world that enables us to achieve a level of peace and happiness. It all begins with self-knowledge.

Socrates spoke about accomplishing this through his student Plato in "The Republic". P.D Ouspensky spoke about the possibility of creating a new man and a better world in "In Search of the Miraculous." Jesus in "The Sermon on the Mount" points the way towards the possibility of creating a new life and turning our exisiting world topsy turvy.

Socrates, though, more than anything was a realist and gave this advice to those who don't want to think about any of this stuff which I imagine is most of us. What he said was, "Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think."