A Whackadoodle Riddle: What makes a life worth living?
If Plato was accurate when he wrote that Socrates said at his trial, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Then what makes a life worth living?
“The unexamined life is not worth living" is a famous dictum supposedly uttered by Socrates at his trial for impiety and corrupting youth, for which he was subsequently sentenced to death. The dictum is recorded in Plato's Apology (38a5–6) as ho dè anexétastos bíos ou biōtòs anthrṓpōi (ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ).
The unexamined life is not worth living - Wikipedia
I have been fascinated by this quote from the moment I heard it.
Socrates was on trial for his life. All he needed to do was retire, and promise to not corrupt the youth with his questions (elenchus)1 again. He chose to die rather live a life unexamined.
We don’t really know what Socrates taught. He was never a writer, or whatever he did write was either lost, or destroyed. We only know him from what his students wrote about him. His students were writers. His students were questioners. They taught about how Socrates used questions to wake dogmatic minds our of their intellectual slumber. (Oh dear, that’s that word woke again.)
So I come back to my original riddle. If what Socrates said at his trial is correct, "the unexamined life is not worth living." Then what makes a life worth living?
I have always thought the answer was obvious. If the unexamined life is not worth living, then examining life might make it worth living.
Worth.
Such an interesting word:
Worth worthwhile noteworthy newsworthy roadworthy pennyworth stalworth worthiness unworthily worthwhile worthless
My favorite has always been worthwhile. What makes a life worthwhile? It’s the reason I titled my first book A River Worth Riding. The internet algorithms thought that my book was actually about river rafting, so a lot of people clicked on it to only get disappointed.
I was trying to examine life, and understand what makes a life worthwhile.
My hope is that you will examine what makes life worthwhile with me because I believe Socrates was right.
The answer to this riddle is examining life is what make life worth living. Even if people what you to stop asking questions, keep asking them.
The aim of the elenchus (Socratic questions) is to wake men out of their dogmatic slumbers into genuine intellectual curiosity. (Richard Robinson, Plato's Earlier Dialectic, 1966).