Philosophy, eh? What do you do with that?
I'm still trying to figure out what it did with me.
Of all my debts to Tufts, one of the largest is to her introducing me to Socrates. First semester freshman year, I met in Plato's dialogue an ugly old barefoot Greek, 24 centuries old, who had sharp wit, honesty, humility, and a burning passion for finding the truth: I fell in love.
It wasn't long before I learned one of Socrates' few admonitions was "Know yourself," the first commandment supposedly from the god Apollo, received by the oracle at Delphi. It seems at first sight an odd thing to command. How can you not know yourself? No one has ever spent more time with you than you. If you don't know yourself, who can teach you? What do you do if the stranger is you?
It seems absurd, yet aren't there those times when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, and just a moment or two, you really do wonder who that is? Do not strange questions come at night to haunt us? "Who am I? What am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?" Perhaps we don't know ourselves all that well after all.
I saw a billboard once that said, "Define yourself." I had to laugh, but not just at the irony of mass market advertising trying to tell me to be an individual. I laughed because those words reflect an entirely different view of the world than Socrates had. If we must "define ourselves," the assumption is that we are the masters of our own reality. We must impose order upon the chaos and create who we are from nothing.
But, if we must "know ourselves," that implies there's already something there to be known. It means you've come into a world, a reality you have not made. You haven't even made yourself. You don't define, you must discover who you are and what it means to be a human being.
When we do not try to discover, and just ignore the question, I think strange things happen. We start to say odd things, like "I don't let my religious beliefs affect my political decisions." I think Socrates would have been very interested in that statement. I think he might have asked the person who said it:
"These political decisions, are these on matters concerning shoes or pastries? No.
What do they concern? War, the family, property rights, crime, social problems. So these concern the highest human things, life and death, human nature, justice and the like? Yes.
When making such decisions, you must choose the one option from the many? Yes.
Do you choose the one according to good looks, or games of chance, or smell, or something like that? Of course not.
Do you choose according to what your friend chooses, or what the polls say, or what you are told to choose? No.
How do you choose the one option from the many? Because it is the better of them.
By better do you mean more convenient or more agreeable, that is, better for you or someone else? No.
So by better you mean what is better in truth, that is, of all the options the one that will really do what needs to be done? Yes.
And you know what needs to be done by what is right, and aims for the good? Yes.
So you make your decision and choose based on what you believe is true? Yes. And on what you believe is right and good? Yes.
In matters of life and death, human nature, justice and the like? Yes.
Now these religious beliefs, do they concern shoes or pastries? That's absurd.
Do these beliefs concern God? Yes.
And God's character? Yes.
And what God has made? Yes.
And what he has said? Yes.
So these are beliefs about God, and his eternal attributes like justice, and the world he's made with its life and death and human nature, and what he has said about what is right and wrong and good and bad? Yes.
Do you hold these religious beliefs because of their looks, or their taste, or because of flipping a coin? Of course not.
Do you hold them because they are popular or because someone tells you to? Not at all.
So you hold them because you think they are really true? Yes.
And these beliefs concern life and death, human nature, justice, and what is right and good? Yes.
Now didn't you say your political decisions concerned human nature, justice, and all those highest things? Yes.
And didn't you say you made those decisions based on what you believe is true, right, and good concerning those things? Yes.
And those beliefs you hold as truth, concerning those things and what is right and good, are your religious beliefs? Yes.
But didn't you say you don't let your religious beliefs affect your political decisions? Yes.
So you don't agree with yourself; either you don't really have any religious beliefs you think are true, or you don't make your political decisions based on what is true, right, and good."
Of course, Socrates would have been funnier and wiser than that, but the idea is the same. When we don't know ourselves, we don't agree with ourselves. We are one person in public and another in private. We are two-faced. We lead a double life and don't know which we really are.
So how do we know ourselves? Try this. Go to the library. Find the oldest book you can and hold it. I held a 400-year-old book on Irish land laws the other day. Now consider the fact that in its day that book was perfectly ordinary. It's only special now because thousands like it didn't make it. They went the way of their first readers, who are all long dead. Now consider the fact that everything you handle today, including this newspaper, is perfectly ordinary. But if this paper survives, in 300 years some kid will think it is special - for the sole reason that he's never heard of Tufts, and we are all long dead. Do you feel small?
I think feeling small is the first step to knowing yourself. Being silent is the second. When was the last time you sat in silence for more than ten minutes? No music, no IM, no distractions. I think we are afraid of silence because we don't want to be small. If we are too silent, we might slow down enough to recognize that something much deeper, much larger, and much more ancient than us is slowly trying to tell us something. And that's scary. But I think it's worth a try. Maybe it will tell us who we are.
Do I know myself? I'm not sure that I do. But I do know Someone knows me. And that is enough.
