An Unexamined Life. No One is Going to Pin That One on Us.

According to Wikiquotes, Socrates, who gave us permission to navel gaze endlessly if all we happen to know is this one liner, "An unexamined life is not worth living", did not actually write the idea down. Born well before the days of blogging, Socrates instead traipsed around asking questions until he had a little band of followers. After his death, one of these followers, Plato, took on the job of creating a written record of some of the things Socrates had said.

I started thinking about that famous one liner because I'm not very satisfied with the last few posts I've made. This feeling of dissatisfaction is partly rooted in how long it takes me to spew out my ideas, or snotty questions to Thing Two, and in how little time there is in the day if I don't actually focus on doing the things which are so far in the back of my mind that they've actually fallen into the little hole filled with dustballs and important papers.

It seems important to me to keep a recorded conversation going here at Nowhere, and at the same time learn how to give the worldly important things, like filling out a bunch of long overdue tax returns, their due. Maybe I need a schedule, and more self-discipline.

I certainly need to review a lot of the information I have stored away in my brain, such as items from the collection of pithy sayings which are useful to pull out from time to time. But often I don't know much about who said them, or the context in which they were said. Luckily we now have our outboard brains. I'm sure trying to find the book of quotations which probably exists somewhere in the house, would have taken much longer than typing "an unexamined" into the top of Chrome and having the rest of the phrase pop up for my surfing pleasure.

It was interesting to take a romp round a few sites, reading up on Socrates, because so much of western culture refers back to ancient Greece and the conversations which began there. Seeing a painting of the death of Socrates, painted by one of the artists we studied in, I have to admit I'm confused by this, 19th century art history?... reminded me of how much there is to know about yesterday if the art of today is going to make sense.

Well, maybe not of today, are any rappers rapping about Socrates or Plato? Am I ready to recognize rap as art? Heck, I can't even remember if I took one art history course or two... ah, two, and Jacques Louis David would have been in 18th century, that makes more sense. Whew, the brain isn't completely mush. I will forgive myself for the confusion on the grounds that the themes and the references are so intertwined... which is part of my point on why I hope Thing Two will actually read the information I've linked to.

That's about it for examining my life for this morning. We are supposed to be at the riding stables in an hour and 35 minutes and the rider is still sleeping. I go to bed with good intentions of going walking to start the day and wake up unwilling to do battle to raise sleeping beauty, or to leave the fire unstarted. Must come up with a better plan! One that requires no enforcement!