6.13.13, 8:56 AM

Whatup Der?

Here I am, visiting you in San Francisco. You just left for work.

I’m in the closet you use as your writing cave. I’m not sure how I feel about the lighting in here. I put some pillows on the seat because it was too low. Now it’s the right height.

Last night at dinner you were talking about Socrates, and I haven’t stopped thinking about him since. I’ve been mulling over his riff about how everyone he meets in Athens seems to structure their lives around a few ideals or values or goals. For example, they place ultimate value on courage or wealth or family or honor or cleverness or piety.

However, when he gets a chance to converse with them individually, none can explain why it’s worth believing in whatever it is he or she believes in. Usually, the value is passed from one generation to the next, unthinkingly.

The democratic ideal seems like it may be a good candidate for a value that you and I inherited and blindly trust. Which is not to say that the democratic ideal is bad. Exactly the opposite.

And yet, since the democratic ideal is so young, historically speaking, it’s really the only one we got that hasn’t already been debunked. After all, the aristocratic ideal was once what all the fuss was about.

Here’s a theoretical premise. There is a hierarchy in which there exist different levels of self-awareness. The levels are fluid, like a continuum, with utter ignorance at the bottom and Plato’s Socrates at the top.

I believe there is a point somewhere in the middle that represents the moment before which you were too ignorant to understand that others exist who are capable of more complex and interesting thoughts than you.

Once this threshold has been crossed, the real learning begins. Finally, you become aware of how gravely shallow your thinking has always been. As far as I can tell, most people never reach this point.

I won’t be able to explain it well, but during the past few months I have started to learn how to leave my old thought patterns. I have reflected on things that are foreign and sometimes terrifying and always beautiful. I have seen how my entire value system is arbitrary.

For example, my original impulse to write was bogus. Deep down, I thought that representing the lifestyle was the same as embodying the life. I never saw beyond the facade or understood it as a byproduct of a certain way of living, which is less glamorous, more complicated, and harder than simply putting on a certain outfit to prove to those who happen to look that I am exactly the person I want them to think I am.

Initially, when I began to see through myself, I was scared. What I saw was flimsy and pathetic. But then I realized I am young. My ignorance is forgivable. Youth is supposed to be ignorant.

Did you know that cephalopods are born fully developed in nearly every way? They know how to hunt fish the instant they enter this world. As infants, they already possess a desire to kill and the means to fulfill it.

If you think about it, it is precisely a human youth’s ignorance, which implies a capacity for learning, that allowed humanity to gain dominion over the planet.

So long for now. Since your WiFi isn’t working, I can’t send this email. You won’t read it until tonight or tomorrow. I’ll probably be in the room while you read.

This very moment, I’m anxiously wondering what your reaction is. Can you feel my eyes boring into the back of your skull? Can you? Weird.

I wished we still lived in the same city. It’s good to be back in San Francisco, if only for a few days.

-st

 

 

The photo is by Der Williams.