Watch Me Entertain Myself!

Sacha Guitry once said, "You can pretend to be serious, but you can't pretend to be witty." Oh yes, I'm the great pretender.
(pilot episode: 20 January 2004)

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Unsettled Down

Butterflies on our office walls.

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I like Socrates. I actually like a lot of the quotes attributed to him.

One of his quotes that I’ve taken to heart is: “An unexamined life is not worth living.” I always believed that what separates us from animals is our intellect. And that is why I like dissecting things, in an attempt to understand. Because the more one understands, the more one is prone to be more forgiving.

But my quest for knowledge is always tempered by his other quote: “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” Indeed, the older I get, the more I realize just how ironically true this is. The more I know, the more I realize that there’s more that I don’t know.

But I guess my current favorite is this: “My advice to you is to get married. If you find a good wife you’ll be happy; if not you’ll become a philosopher.” I think I think too much, which is why I think I’m not meant for marriage, hahaha. At the back of my mind there’s a nagging thought that there’s more to life than finding a partner. Settling down and contentment is for most everyone; I’m afraid I’m cursed to walk the more difficult path of dissatisfaction and questioning.

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(It’s amazing how the mind can configure things to suit one’s needs. And it’s amazing what a change in one’s environment can do to one’s daily musings.)

3 comments:

Herbs D. said...

“My advice to you is to get married. If you find a good wife you’ll be happy; if not you’ll become a philosopher.”

maybe thats why I always wanted to be a philosopher. its that inner calling in me...mwahahaha

Ming Meows said...

so socrates was not married

Unknown said...

Ironically, Socrates WAS married. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates

If you'll look at Jacques-Louis David's painting of The Death of Socrates, his wife is the one on the far right side, distanced from her husband's deathbed.

Khan!