Tuesday, May 30, 2006

The search for truth

I sat down for a drink with a friend this evening. Our bartender, a philosopher who I'll name Mark #72, explained how he was fascinated by ancient philosophers like Plato and Plato's students. Mark #72 said that his own philosophy was "to maintain permanent disbelief," a cynical philosophy that would keep him from being labelled a fanatic, because he's not a fanatic. I am not a fanatic either, but instead of taking his philosophy, I'll twist mine a bit and write that I more closely identify with "maintaining a constant state of searching for truth until I find it." And if I'm not mistaken (I'm not), nearly every great writer that college students study in their required Western Civilization courses was on his/her own search for the very same thing.

2 comments:

John said...

Exactly... In my own little quest.. I guess I have started using the word authenticity to describe that quest on my journey through life. I had an entire class in college about the authentic state of architecture between what a person says and what (s)he "does". It is only through the combination of the talk and the walk that things can be true.

Bruno said...

call me crazy, but i think someone who's in permanent disbelief could easily be called someone who's fanatic about their skepticism.