Dear Socrates

So I was on my way to class the other day, when I discovered this rather provocative existential conversation happening on a chalkboard in the hallway of the physics building. The next day I came back to find additional responses to the statements from yesterday. I have uploaded the pictures I took of them, and i would like to respond to them in a few ways. First I want to respond to the from that this conversation took: anonymous contributions on a public space. It's almost like a physical version of the "cloud". It speaks to me that technology doesn't shape human behavior more than behavior shapes technology. Next I want to respond to the initial statement that sparked this conversation: "The unexamined life is not worth living." It's my oppinion that unexamined life does have it's merits. There is value in learing to act naturally, not accorinding to the standars that are imposed by anayzing behavior. The second statement takes a fatalist stance, claiming that even the examined life is not worth living due to its lack of permanance. Rather than obsess of what meaning ones life has in the world as a whole, one must find meaning in his own life as an individual, and then work to make a difference in the world. The response to this on the board: "The examined life is worth living. Don't hang out in Plato's cave too long. You might forget where you are." suguests a balance analyzing life and living it. I think this sentiment is summed nicely by Mark Twain's quote: "The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the life too closely examined may not be lived at all." Live the overexamined life, and you won't see the forest for the trees, live the uneximined life, and you'll run blindly into a tree.