After he had been condemned to death on the trumped up charges of corrupting the youth of Athens and failing to revere the local gods, Socrates began to ruminate on the afterlife before an audience of his judges.
He said that death is one of two possibilities. Either it is a long dreamless sleep and really rather pleasant, or it is a passage to another place, namely Hades, and there we’ll be able to hang out with Homer, Hesiod and rest of the Greek heroes, which sounds great. Socrates’ point is that we do not know whether death is the end or some sort of continuation.
Art school, with its grand theories and postulations, was a thrill-a-minute trip in which I lingered until my mid-twenties. The years following have been quick and sleepy but not thoroughly pleasant. Whether the next phase is the pleasant-dreamless sort or the pleasant-exhilerating kind is TBD. Even the 'pleasant' piece is up for a vote. The next three years will be novel. There's no continuation here, and the possibility of an abrupt sort of end.
Critchley on pursuit of happiness in American Society: "We assume that the question of happiness is a question of my happiness or, more properly, of my relation to my happiness."
Here's hoping that I discover some happiness to relate myself to.
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