The patterns of life hypnotize us. The trance is not easily broken. Sometimes it takes pain and death to wake us up, even for a little while, before we lose ourselves in the trance again.
But we have to break the trance. I think Socrates was right when he said that the unexamined life is not worth living. To me living the examined life means bringing into awareness patterns of behavior that otherwise might have remained hidden. It means stopping to think about life, and one's role in it. It means asking questions like, are you doing what you're supposed to be doing? Living the way you ought? How ought man live? Living the examined life means not only seeking basic answers, but examining whether one is consistent according to that fundamental understanding. That consistency can also be called integrity. Do we have integrity? Or do we live inconsistently with our beliefs? We must examine life to find out.
The Apostle Paul advised the Corinthians, "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith..." Isaiah criticized Israel, "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." If Israel didn’t know, how were they responsible? I see a lot of emphasis in popular moral philosophy on the failure of the will to do what is known as right, and very little recognition of the moral failure to take time to consider what is right in the first place. Israel wasn't responsible because they knew better, but because they didn't know better. Their ignorance was culpable because they didn’t live the examined life.
Fortunately, if we have integrity, we don't need to wait for the suffering from natural evil to break the trance. We can live the examined life now! But how do we overcome a world that is so able to hypnotize? When one person wakes up for a while, he will look at all the other people and give them a label like zombies or sheep. But that sense of awareness passes, and the "awake" person goes right back to the patterns of life with the sheep and zombies. These moments of awareness happen for everyone, but it never sticks. This is an apt example of how powerful these patterns are. The popular maxim, “Eat, Sleep, Play” (sometimes work) is indeed a frightening exemplification of how lives are being lived. Where is the examined life in eat, sleep play?
So how do we break the trance? One way might be right in front of you. Journaling or blogging is a very effective way of taking stock of life. It induces regular and frequent “stop and think” moments. It forces the writer to make considerations and articulate them; look at them on the page and face them when the abstractions in the head are easier to ignore.
I would like to use Cognitive Strain as a forum for living the examined life. I also wish it to be an encouragement for others to live the examined life too. Because we examine life, we can be satisfied in not affirming contradictions in action or in thought. We are made whole by this concern for consistency that challenges the hypnotism of the patterns of life. Integrity unravels this impulsive neglect to live the examined life. The failure to seek and understand is a moral failure that the eat, sleep, play kind of life describes. You and I need to be more thoughtful than that. We need to live better.
