Plates

Learned about Plato today.

I didn't learn anything that you can't easily find if you wikipedia him.

One thing I noticed that's kind of strange to me is that if I'm not doing anything and have time to think about it, when I try to ask myself questions like "what is the happiest/best way to live?" or "what do I think is after death?"

My mind goes blank. It's like someone demanding, after a long weighted silence, "speak." And you can't possibly think of anything to start a conversation with.

Except it's "live a happy and good life!" and I become hyper-aware of how little I'm doing. And how little I could possibly do in this moment that would be meaningful to that kind of question.

And the ironic thing is that when you are in the middle of something truly important and life is really happening to you--you would never stop to think about those sorts of questions.

So--is it important to keep asking yourself these questions to be able to do it when it probably matters most? Or do you need to be able to remember those moments and the feelings in those moments and reflect on them after they've past?

The first would give you immediate perspective but if you got too good at it would you ever really experience something? It seems kind of numbing.

The second allows you to live your life as you would normally while presumably making adjustments but there is that distance between the event and the reflection. Memory biases abound! It seems like something that demands an awareness as its happening.

So, it's a whole lot of "can't have one or neither or both."

Also Plato died of a lice infection.