Nibbles

An out-of-the-box reading would be that Socrates nibbles away at problems, while Plato goes for grand all-encompassing solutions. I much prefer nibbles, not only aesthetically, but also because they apply in real life and all conditions.

Questioning every little thing can be paralyzing, of course, but it is often useful. “Why should I do this?” “Why are things this way?” Honest questions with honest answers allow us to deal with all the unique and contradictory problems of life, messy though they may be

But questioning everything as part of a forced logical trail to a predetermined ideal answer is fatiguing and often useless. “Why_because” ends up in a swamp of exceptions _ “nobody should be killed _ except…” is typical. And the answer is often wrong and useless except for reinforcing obsessive unthinking behavior and standards

Much better to take small bites. The universe and its ways and the future itself are unknowable and mostly obscure. Much of the vast sweep of such issues are irrelevant to how I eat breakfast. But it is also always useful to question what you are having for breakfast and why, even if only for a moment.

So hooray for nibbles, which, unfortunately, have fallen out of favor in this era of grand internet conspiracy theories.