Salutes To Socrates

Nearly after a gap of 8 years, i "accidentally" met a friend of mine. It was really amazing for me, as it came out of complete surprise. We started talking about in numerous old things. I was really astounded that how fast we travelled those 8 years gap :) ! We discussed myriad range of topics varying from studies to sports to chicks to philosophy.

Here , exactly here, at "Philosophy", our discussion halted!! Because we both didn't had any answers to what we asked each other!  He asked fundamental questions of human existence. What makes us happy? What makes us good? What is virtue? What is love? What is fear? How should we best live our lives? 

Later that day i started ruminating over the discussions we had and was enjoying among myself:), until the topic of philosophy came into my mind about which we discussed too. This made me rediscover the man behind it. I, particularly, for no specific reason got attracted to his life instantly. This man tried to discover the meaning of life. His search was so radical, charismatic and counter intuitive that he become famous throughout the Mediterranean. Men — particularly "young" men — flocked to hear him speak. Some were inspired to the extent that people started to imitate his ascetic habits. As it is rightly said, “He brought philosophy down from the skies.” However with the passage of time, things started to turn ugly, it seems the economy crashed; year in, year out, men came home dead; the population starved. And suddenly the philosopher's bright ideas, his eternal questions, his eccentric ways, started to jar. And so, one fine day, the philosopher was docked on two charges: disrespecting the city's traditional gods and corrupting the young. The accused was found guilty. His punishment: state-sponsored suicide.

The man was none other than Socrates, the great! He is the philosopher from ancient Athens and arguably the true father of western thought. his humble origins. The son of a stonemason, Socrates was famously odd, disturbingly ugly. Socrates had a pot-belly, a weird walk, swiveling eyes and hairy hands.

Well, putting aside his unshakable position in the world of philosophy, why should we care about this curious, clever, condemned Greek?

Quite simply because Socrates's problems were our own.His hometown — successful, cash-rich — was in danger of being swamped by its own vigorous quest for beautiful objects, new experiences, foreign coins.There are in numerous points about Socrates, which made me to attract towards his writings, one such piece of writing i would like to bring in here. We see so many sculptures of great people, who once upon a time ruled our country. We built so many monuments  on their stature, so that the world can remember them But Socrates questioned such blind obedience to such things. “What is the point,” he asked, “of walls and warships and glittering statues if the men who build them are not happy?” What is the reason for living life, other than to love it? For Socrates, the pursuit of knowledge was as essential as the air we breathe

“One day Socrates met a young man on the streets of Athens. ‘Where can bread be found?' asked the philosopher. The young man responded politely. ‘And where can wine be found?' asked Socrates. With the same pleasant manner, the young man told Socrates where to get wine. ‘And where can the good and the noble be found?' then asked Socrates. The young man was puzzled and unable to answer. ‘Follow me to the streets and learn,' said the philosopher.” Whereas immediate, personal contact helped foster a kind of honesty, Socrates argued that strings of words could be manipulated, particularly when disseminated to a mass market. “You might think words spoke as if they had intelligence, but if you question them they always say only one thing . . . every word . . . when ill-treated or unjustly reviled always needs its father to protect it,” he said.

Socrates was, I think, a scapegoat for Athens's disappointment. When the city was feeling strong, the quirky philosopher could be tolerated. But, overrun by its enemies, starving, and with the ideology of democracy itself in question, the Athenians took a more fundamentalist view. A confident society can ask questions of itself; when it is fragile, it fears them. Socrates' famous aphorism “the unexamined life is not worth living” was, by the time of his trial, clearly beginning to jar.

After his death, Socrates' ideas had a prodigious impact on both western and eastern civilisation. His influence in Islamic culture is often overlooked — in the Middle East and North Africa, from the 11th century onwards, his ideas were said to refresh and nourish, “like . . . the purest water in the midday heat”. Socrates was nominated one of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, his nickname “The Source”. So it seems a shame that, for many, Socrates has become a remote, lofty kind of a figure.

When Socrates finally stood up to face his charges in front of his fellow citizens in a religious court in the Athenian, he articulated one of the great pities of human society. “It is not my crimes that will convict me,” he said. “But instead, rumour, gossip; 

For rumour is an evil thing; by nature she's a light weight to lift up, yes, but heavy to carry and hard to put down again. Rumour never disappears entirely once people have indulged her.” Rather than follow the example of his accusers, we should perhaps honour Socrates' exhortation to “know ourselves”, to be individually honest, to do what we, not the next man, knows to be right. Not to hide behind the hatred of a herd, the roar of the crowd, but to aim, hard as it might be, towards the “good” life 

Hail Socrates!!