would you rather be socrates unsatisfied or a pig in shit? the life unexamined is not worth living… but the pig is actually happy isn’t it? at least, it is in this philosophical paradox.
but ultimately, even if you choose the socratic life, ultimately you will still need to clean your toilet and take the bins out.
i remember distinctly an evening of childhood. my mum had made pork. i was chewing the pig in my mouth. overcooked. dry. tough. i left the dining table and went to the kitchen and spat the mouth-full into the bin. i thought about mortality: this was a dead pig i had desecrated. what a waste. i too would die. and i was scared of that. but if this pig could do it, maybe it wasn’t such a big thing.
a few years later i became a vegetarian, and i have mostly been vegetarian for most of my adult life.
the love epochal. n.n. benn 