The Unexamined LIfe

Socrates famously said that "The unexamined life is not worth living." Who are these people who fail to scrutinize their lives? I never met a man who did not internalize his mistakes, whether or not he adapted his behavior based on their lessons. A woman who maxes out her credit cards at the mall does not wonder "Why am I broke?" Someone who gets into car collisions on a regular basis knows he lacks superior driving skills. Alcoholics know that their drinking has a negative effect on their lives; their children grow up to see that their parents' drinking wrought emotional damage on them as children. When I was twenty I drank to the point of blacking out several times, and each time I would internalize my error as I externalized the previous night's libations. It took many, many repetitions of this experience to turn me onto caution, but after a time or two I knew the danger I faced when Monarch vodka was around. The shopper knows she is sabotaging her finances when she hits the mall. It doesn't take a genius to examine his own life; it takes a pulse.

Consider a boy of twelve who's called down to the principal's office.

"David, it is not acceptable to moon other students on the playground. Remember when you signed your behavior contract that we decided you would miss recess if you couldn't follow the rules outside?"

"David, water balloons are not allowed at school, and they are definitely not allowed in the classrooms. I've called your mother and arranged for you to stay after school to dry the wet math books under the air dryer in the boy's bathroom."

"DAVID! We have a serious problem. Did you drop the math books you were supposed to be drying last night into the toilets?"
"No."
"So I'm supposed to think the book pages started flapping in the still classroom after you left, took flight and flew from the shelves into the bathroom and splashed into the toilets?"
"Well I didn't do it."
"Well, David, you are not going on the field trip next week because Mrs. Johannson doesn't think you can make sixth grade decisions."

Next week, while David is on an In-School-Suspension and the rest of his class is on the field trip:
David the Analytical thinks, "I suppose I keep getting in trouble with those bitches because I do things I can easily be caught doing. I should start framing people. I'm going to put an anonymous note on Mrs. Johansson's desk sometime that says Brittany cheated on a spelling test or something."

Ten years later he thinks, "I suppose because I was always competing with my mom's boyfriends for her affection I looked for attention by acting out at school."

David the Fucking Moron, alternatively, sits in his suspension thinking, "Those bitches hate me. It makes no sense that I have to stay here and everyone else gets to go. I'm going to carve my name in this table later with the hunting knife in my backpack."

Ten years later he thinks, "My girlfriend is lame. I hate bananas. I am going to slash Harold's tires."

This is not meant to convey the notion that if everyone were analytical, there would be ten Gallants to every Goofus. Even when I was little I thought Gallant was a douche- one of the kids who tattles all the time. There is nothing more repulsive than a pious goody-goody. I simply think that a lot of people who know the exact reasons for their behavior hide behind dramatic statements like "I need to find myself!" and "I don't even know who I am anymore!" when they clearly spend an inordinate amount of time wrapped up in themselves.

Each of us spends every waking second within ourselves, and every sleeping second within our subconscious. Someone who thinks he truly must strike out and "find himself" has either been in a brainwashing mental institution all of his days or else he is a narcissist who is so wrapped up in himself and his torrent of emotions that he desires more time to extrapolate on his self-obsessed thoughts. This is not an unexamined life.

People are determined to live by a moral code or to rebel against one and even those who fail again and again to live up to society's standards are aware of their shortcomings. An evangelist who cries fire and brimstone against homosexuals feels pride in his moral nature. The subject of his rant is secure in the knowledge that if his accuser actually lived by Christian principles he would try and welcome him into his church and not alienate him from brotherhood.

Everyone has paradoxical traits and confusion, but those issues do not amount to a legitimate identity crisis. I do not know what to do about graduate school. I do, however, know the following: I am a person who likes to drink pineapple-orange-banana juice every morning, and I am a picky eater, and I do things like homework and novel reading and running in cycles of periodic multi-day binges. I love to be alone and I get migraines. I like to peer over the edge of a cliff, I will stick my whole chest right over it, but I am afraid of falling while I walk- I have dreams about it all the time. I fervently hate the Republican party but I believe a free market is inevitable. When I am sick I want to be left alone and when other people are sick I don't want to take care of them. Anyone who can identify simple patterns from a set of data knows who he is.

Perhaps there exists an individual in the world who is mentally sound but does not look over his life in retrospect seeking patterns and validation, but he is not an American and I doubt he exists in Western culture.