As I was scrolling through my facebook feed, I came across a post about a Japanese legend that said that “if you get on the wrong train, get off at the nearest station, the longer it takes you to get off, the more expensive the return trip will be.”
Reading it reminded me of something I read about what Socrates believed in, and remembering both what the Japanese legend and Socrates believed in, moved me to write.
Writing by the way, is something that is most satisfyingly done when you are inspired to write. If you read a lot, travel a lot or try to understand as many things as you canto the best of your ability, at some point in your life, when you have a particular experience - you will have an inspired moment, whe some of thing that you read or saw or understand, will suddenly sink in to the heart of your mind, and make you feel that you have understand the “meaning behind it all.” At such a time, if you jot down your inspiration, you will gain a satisfaction that will rival or exceed any other joy and satisfaction that you have felt in your life.
The most famous inspired moment in history, for example, occured to Archimedes, who upon making a discovery when he was taking abath, would in a fit of jubilation, jump out of the bath and ran naked through the streets shouting "Eureka!" which means "I've found it!" in Greek.
Anyway, I digress - coming back to the Japanese legend and Socrates, Socrates believed that we will know why we are born in this life, and this life is equivalent to being in a wrong train station, as per the Japanese legend, when we have Anemnesis - or the inate knowledge acquired before we were born.
Socrates believes in reincarnation - he believes that we have had many lives before this one - he believes that the destination is behind us, not in front of us - our destiny to return home, before we were swept away into this never ending road of endless rebirths - and to get back to our destination, or home, we have to remember where we came from and make our way back.
How did we get swept away from where we came from and caused us to be born in this wrong train station in the first place?
I suppose to answer that question is easy - whatever that swept us away to this life is probably still sweeping us away in this life as we speak, so all we have to do is ask ourselves what is sweeping us away through the days and the week and years, to figure out the answer.
Once we figure our the answer, then we have to get out of the current that is sweeping us away, and go against the flow.
Once we go against the current, that is when we are on the right track, and the more we are on the right track, the more we will remember the road home.
The nearest station to disembark is this life.
Whenever we do something in this life without examining why, we are probably going to be reborn in our next life in a wrong train station that is further away from our home than this life.
That is also perhaps why Socrates also said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” He probably said that because whatever we do without examining our deeds, is only going to get us swept away further from our destiny.
The longer we get swept away, the more expensive the return trip will be.
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