The socratic Paradox and the enemy of learning

Socrates (c. 470 BC), once said “I know that I know nothing”. Plato (α 428/427 or 424/423 BC – ω 348/347 BC) told us the story when The Oracle of Delphi stated “Socrates is the wisest.”

I dedicated my life to learning and like a fire in the sky i followed Socrates advice, at first getting it completely wrong, then unlocking a little meaning from it, and eventually being able to live it fully without thinking in any situation I am in.

My starting point for any conversation and discussion has been “I know nothing, let’s try to learn something”.

Did it serve me well?

Yes.

It helped me learn much quicker than most of the people i have seen around me and ironically enough, this is not my ego talking because as i said before “I know that i know nothing”.

Most people around us are driven by ego. If we are driven by ego, we will never learn one important thing in life. When we are driven by ego, we start conversations from a point where we believe that our knowledge of the other person’s reality is more than zero. This is always wrong, unless you have been in somebody else’s mind from the very moment she was born to the exact moment when the conversation starts.

Paradoxically if that was the case, we wouldn’t need the conversation because the thoughts of the two individuals would be the same.

Our ego is the worst enemy of learning, because he doesn’t allow us to get rid of our preconceptions and biases about the person we have in front of us hence making us unable to learn anything at all.

If our life is driven by our ego, we will distance ourselves more and more from the world of the other people we want to interact with because throughout our life our ego has been telling them “i know your stupid mind, shut up, I’m telling you who you are to help you”.

How sad is this? We already are so lonely in a life where we spend all of our time in the only seat of the best movie in the world, our life.

It is even sadder because the day you realise that it is worth finding out what people think is the day we unlock our learning superpower, asking powerful questions 🦄

Socrates does not want to know, he wants to learn from the people around him and nature, the ego wants to know and doesn’t want to learn from anybody or anything.

Do you want to be wise, or learn? Intentions are everything

Do you want to be Socrates the learner, or do you want to be the Oracle?

The choice is yours 🍄