If you wanted to be a somebody in Athens, Greece, in the 400s BC, you needed to meet the city’s high beauty standards and/or be talented at winning arguments. It was the era of “sophists,” paid teachers of rhetoric (public speaking). These teachers cared more about winning arguments (especially lawsuits) than about seeking truth. They developed a reputation for being more clever than ethical. As the expression goes, the point became to win “by hook or by crook.”
Socrates didn’t feel great about his looks or his intelligence. Socrates was an Athenian who was famously ugly (with bulgy eyes and a pug nose) and who didn’t think he knew much of anything. He was just a former foot soldier. Unlike the Sophists who felt confident in their own knowledge, Socrates had way more curiosity than education. And yet, something very confusing happened. When somebody asked a renowned prophetess in the area (the Oracle at Delphi) who she believed was the smartest person in Athens, she gave Socrates as the answer.
What?! Socrates thought. I know next to nothing. As he began to seek out knowledge (possibly just to disprove the Oracle), he began to realize that he did have a huge intellectual advantage over the people he dialogued with: he knew how little he knew. Aware of his ignorance, he asked local smart people question after question and found that his questions forced everybody to rethink their positions. He began to see himself as a “gadfly,” a fly that lives in a barn and relentlessly pesters and bites the cattle and other domestic animals.
“He began to see himself as a ‘gadfly,’ a fly that lives in a barn and relentlessly pesters and bites the cattle and other domestic animals.”
This gadfly went on to become the “founder of Western philosophy.” Philosophy is about pausing, taking a step back, and asking tough questions about what is real, what is true, and how to live. Nobody enjoys having their settled systems of thought and carefully arranged answers upended by inconvenient questions. But Socrates believed truth was worth it. In fact, he was literally willing to die for his pursuit of truth. When convicted by an Athenian court because he was disrupting society with his teachings, he stood by his methods and accepted the punishment of death.
The quote Socrates is best known for is this:
“The unexamined life isn’t worth living.”
What Socrates was saying here is that we need to direct the tough questions on our own lives. We need to play the gadfly on ourselves. Socrates believed that it’s so important to know ourselves that the unexamined life isn’t even worth living.
Why is it so important that we engage the struggle to know ourselves?
There are all sorts of drawbacks to never pausing, taking a step back, and asking the tough questions about who we are and what we know and how we’re living. Let’s just focus in on one drawback: If you never pause long enough to get to know yourself, your story never develops.
“If you never pause long enough to get to know yourself, your story never develops.”
If Socrates never asked the tough questions of himself, Athens would have stayed in the grip of the Sophists and Socrates never would have gone on to found Western philosophy. The unexamined Jean Valjean never pauses to ask if there’s a soul within him to be salvaged from within the hardened prisoner—and Les Miserables never gets written. In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Strider (Aragorn) never puts aside the ranger to become Gondor’s king, and there never is a “Return of the King.” In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker never wrestles with whether there’s more to his story than being a moisture farmer.
The Queen Esther who never remembers her Jewish heritage never rises up to save her people from a Persian genocide. The Moses that doesn’t agonize over whether he’s a prince of Egypt, a son of Hebrew slaves, or a Midianite shepherd never rises up to lead his people out of slavery. The Mary Magdalene who never gets over the stigma of having once been possessed by demons never becomes the first witness of the resurrected Jesus.
In the pursuit of knowledge, it’s better to be a gadfly than a spider. While a spider spins threads from within and tries to trap people in its cleverly crafted webs, a gadfly pesters everybody awake. And it’s better to be awake and annoyed than to fly blissfully unaware into a web of lies. When caught in such webs, we find the web’s master spinning us in circles and coating us with a cocoon that begins to feel comfy. For many, that’s where the story ends.
“In the pursuit of knowledge, it’s better to be a gadfly than a spider.”
If we don’t develop the habit of knowing ourselves? We end up snug and unbothered, binging Netflix every night in order to watch someone else’s story unfold. Because until we wake up, our story is basically over.
Excerpted from Daniel McCoy’s and Andrew Jit’s Rhythms: How to Live as a Disciple of Jesus.
