On Searching....

The other day in philosophy, we read through the story of Socrates and Meno. Meno asks Socrates if virtue can be taught. Socrates, in his typical manner, never answered anything with declarative sentences, but rather with questions. So Socrates asked Meno what virtue was. As the didactic continues, Meno can not give a definition of virtue. Meno then proposes that, if you do not know what something is, you must search for it, but if you do not know what you are looking for, then how will you find it?

This dialogue was written in the fifth century BC, but the question is so poignant and applicable. We spend our lives searching. Searching for a significant other, a place to live, a career, so on and so on. But we go into this search with an open mind. Now, an open mind is good. We focus on the journey of the search as something that will teach us a great amount for our later lives. However, the journey becomes abysmal once the end destination is reached.

Whenever we reach the end destination, we feel satisfied. We feel as if we have found what we have always been searching for. Like the answer has simply fallen from above into our path. This sudden finding is satisfying, and we spend the rest of our lives working through this destination. The destination becomes another journey of its own.

But Meno has a point - if we do not have it, we must search for it. But how will we find it if we do not know what it is? If we can not define the thing that we are searching for, how will we know what it is when we get to it? We can obviously make grandiose guesses that the thing we find is the right thing based on its timing and appearance in our lives. I think often times we can define what we want. We want certain qualities in a significant other, we want to live in a certain place due to the amenities that it offers, we want a certain career based on the benefits offers us.

In this search, all of the variables are not separated and distinguished. They all become one. In this conjunction, the idea of individual qualities becomes lost. The search centers in what makes you happy, which often can not be defined, by the best efforts. If there is no definition, how will you know it when you find it?

It's a rather interesting thought, that the journey we spend our entire lives on may be for nothing. That we may be missing our end result. Socrates and Meno further discussed this journey when Socrates asked why we should even bother looking. Meno and Socrates debated and eventually came to the agreement that the search is still something you should embark upon.

This isn't meant to dishearten anyone on the journey. We are all on a journey searching for something unknown, but often within that we narrow ourselves into a certain train of thought. Let that train of thought be as broad as the possibilities you will encounter on your journey. Don't limit yourself based on qualifications that supposedly make you happy. You may or may not know what it is when you find it, but save your findings. Lock them away in your box of memories. It will come in handy later....