Wild Humans and Socrates

I told a student the famous quote from Socrates, "The unexamined life is not worth living." He interpreted this to mean, at first, "The life unexamined by others is not worth living." I thought this disembodied understanding of a quote that I assumed to be simple was strange and delightfully exhilirating. And if it were true!

I've had fantasies while walking through dense forests in remote areas of running into a wild human. A human that had no family, no language, and no reason to believe that anyone else existed outside of himself. He would spot me first, because wild humans are more in tune with their senses. And, I think, despite having no language he would immediately understand that I was like him in a way.

This reminds me also of how picked up my dog after doing yard work, and put a tarp down in the backyard and put fire wood on it. When running outside as he always does at night before bed, he was flabbergasted at how his world had changed unexpectedly. He barked a warning and growled while pacing around the tarp with his tail down and his hackles raised. Are we to say that he is not a smart animal? Certainly not.

At times, I have come to the conclusion that the lives of certain other people aren't worth living. My job is not to convince them to stop living it, or to put them out of their misery. But it raises many questions when you look in the face of another without any concept of why this person lives. Of course, I can not even remember a time in my life when I wasn't asking myself questions about why I lived and what I lived for. Of course, this is all absurd anyway. But the absurd needs a reason why too, even if it is an absurd reason.

I digress.

I have never met a wild human. I am not sure that I would like to meet one. It would ruin his world, I think.