I have an idea to try and read a book and write down my thoughts here. I’ve been meaning to get back into reading for a while and this may be a way to make things more interesting. I typically just read and then say my thoughts out loud. I guess that might sound a little crazy but I honestly might be. I talk to myself pretty often. I mean, I’m not having a conversation with myself, typically, unless I’m inebriated. It’s more like my brain doesn’t do a good job of thinking things all the way through so saying it out loud is how my brain consolidates my thoughts into a much more coherent version.
Maybe I should choose an easy book to start this on but for some reason I want to try and read Plato’s Republic. I’ve never actually read a pretentious type of book even though I was initially a philosophy major in college before switching to english. Honestly, I doubt this writing will work. I’ll probably get about 10 pages in and then get distracted by something. But hey, who cares? I can do whatever I want, and yes I have to keep saying that over and over again because even though it is true already I still have a hard time believing it. I know that’s odd but hey, who cares, right?
Anyway, lets begin.
Its 20 minutes later and I got distracted before picking the book up. Shit.
First off, Greek names are pretty cool. Glaucon, Thrasymarchus, Niceratus, and Piraeus. The Chalcedonian.
Polemarchus seems like kind of a tool already.
Cephalus tells us about old age on page 5 of Book 1 and I think I’m already in love with this book. His little monologue already has me hooked and agreeing. I also love that Socrates, pronounced Soh-Crates by professionals, has the same reaction. He’s ecstatic to hear it and wants him to keep speaking.
“The decent man would not bear poverty very easily, nor would the one who is not a decent sort ever be content with himself even if he were wealthy.”
Yeah, I already know I’m gonna read this whole book probably. BTW, I am getting a bit inebriated right now. I’ll let you guess what it is that inebriates me.
“Now, the man who finds many unjust deeds in his life often even wakes from his sleep in a fright as children do, and lives in anticipation of evil. To the man who is conscious in himself of no unjust deed, sweet and good hope is ever beside him, a nurse of his old age.”
Fuck, if I keep writing down quotes I like I’m gonna transcribe the whole book.
This is actually pretty hard to follow. I’ve always noted that Philosophers have a weird sort of love affair with commas. Philosophy books contain more commas than all other books combined. A detailed understanding of grammar is actually pretty important here and to be honest with you I have always hated grammar. I’m a vernacular man, I am. I am, Sam. Dr. Seuss joke for no reason.
“The man who seems to be, and is, good is a friend, while the man who seems good and is not, seems to be but is not a friend. And we’ll take the same position about the enemy.”
Dayum, Socrates is taking Thrasymachus to task. I’m gonna start starting these little notes with page numbers so you know where I’m at. I’m on page 14 of my edition. Hold up. I think these numbers at the top are what I should use. I’m at 336d. Pretty sure that’s the designation of the actual page this section was translated from rather than the page of this edition. Socrates just made that dude sit down. Called him a “Surprising man”. That’s a great burn. A perfect 10/10 burn. A perfect burn takes the possible reactions of the recipient into consideration.
still 336d. “I shouldn’t be surprised if that were my opinion upon consideration.”
341c. “Do you suppose me to be so mad as to try and shave a lion and play sycophant with Thrasymachus?”
351. I gotta say, 349 and 350 totally had me lost. The metaphors and opposites all got blurry. Was that supposed to happen for the purpose only of persuading Thrasymachus and not of being legible or, was it all supposed to make sense? I tried man, I really did, kinda. I got turned around at ‘the musical man’. I’ll read it again. Hold on.
I got out my journal and I’m taking notes on the groupings of adjectives and their counterparts in other hypotheticals.
Just got distracted for a while by trying to take handwriting personality tests. Why can’t I learn everything about myself with a simple quiz? That’s stupid. Quiz makers are failing us. I’m mad about it.
Ok, I re-read the whole thing and took pages of notes correlating each type of person described to how they were described and I get where the change happened. Thrasymachus starts to correlate being just to be good at your art because to good doctors wouldn’t fight each other, they would only fight bad doctors, for the purpose of improving the quality of the doctors.
351a. “Injustice is lack of learning.”
Well, I finished book one of Plato’s Republic and it’s crazy how much me and Socrates are on the same page. Please, realize that this is not me bragging or anything because I’m fully understanding that I am not a special snowflake soul that is the only one in thousands of years that actually gets what Plato is talking about. Wait, am I being unjust to myself? I actually came to almost all the same conclusions. I was saying this shit to my brother just the other day as I was talking about World War 2 and how obviously Hitler had no fucking chance. His level of injustice had no chance from the beginning. You can say, oh what if this one thing had turned in their favor but all it takes is just to take a step back and you realize that they never stood a chance. No organization that is unjust to itself can ever accomplish it’s goals. This doesn’t mean an unjust organization can’t do things but it only truly accomplishes anything when it is only unjust to people outside the organization and holy shit was none of that possible. Even the leadership of other countries like Japan fail to work as a cohesive unit and suffer. You can say we got lucky that the Germans had alot of infighting but seriously, does any world exist where all the Germans are happy friends with each other and never lie to each other or to themselves? They never stood a chance against… I’m not sure what to call it… Justice? That’s kind of dramatic isn’t it.
I should get off the WW2 topic and focus on how absurdly alike I am in belief and hope to Socrates. It’s weird. This guy has been dead for 10,000 years or whatever and the world is unfathomably different from what it was in ancient Greece except that it’s not at all. Humans are humans. All I did was be my average level of intelligence and pay attention to literally everything around me for 28 years and I came to the same ideas and conclusions about humanity as this guy did. Basically completely independently from each other. I’ve never did any reading assignments at all in college especially not for philosophy classes. Too many commas for me to handle. I legitimately am kind of freaked out how similar we are.
I guess the true question is to find out if I’m more like Glaucon or if I am like Socrates. Don’t worry, this isn’t some J, Alfred Prufrock type of fear based question. Glaucon is super dope. He understands and lives everything Socrates says but obviously being Socrates is almost impossible. The dude is crazy genius and creative and brilliant. The depth of every word in this book is confirmation that he is a once in a millennium type of brain. There’s nothing, whatsoever, fearful or sad or side character about Glaucon. Maybe I haven’t said but Glaucon is Socrates’ friend that was traveling with him. He has great chemistry with Socrates and believes everything the same way that Socrates does. I see him as Socrates’ equal even if he is worse at saying exactly the right thing every single time.
I’m gonna be thinking about this alot and for a while. Book 2 will be tomorrow I think.
The Mind of Joshypoo 