I wouldn’t say my life is fulfilled.  I have everything I want but one.  I want to be a father.  I imagine nobody’s life is truly complete until they have children (if they are endowed with a desire for them.)  Until then, our genes force us to ever pursue a suitable mate until such time as we find one.  That drive, that yearning, is I believe the most painful of human emotions.  Its name is a familiar one: loneliness.  As I am a university student, naturally I have quite a bit of life left to experience, so I could be drastically wrong about this, but I think a loving relationship capable of surviving children would leave my life fulfilled.  I believe it will be a gargantuan challenge to meet that goal, but I’m sure I will eventually.

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The most influential person in my life, with the exception of myself, is one who has not lived in nearly 2500 years.  His name, never to be forgotten in all of human history, was Socrates.  To be fair, I didn’t always know how much he had influenced me, but all my education beyond the basics was done using the Socratic method.  Also, I have had several of his thoughts verbatim as translated.  Like Socrates, I live my life according to principle, and I am not content with any answer until I have thoroughly evaluated its truth.  I always question the assumptions of my society and I never assume anyone is right about anything.  I demand argumentation.  As such, I see myself as Socrates saw himself, a wise gadfly.  I only hope I do not meet a similar end as he.

Related articles

• Is The Socratic Method Timeless? (socyberty.com)
• O Elenchos de Sócrates – método da refutação – Socratic method (acordocoletivo.org)
• The Wife of Socrates (espliego.wordpress.com)
• Who Was Socrates? (brainz.org)

If I could go to any country in the world, it would certainly be Germany.  I know more about Germany and Germans than about any other country with the exception of Canada, my home country.  I also speak German, which strongly influences my desire to go there, although I am by no means fluent in it yet.  Germany is home to a good deal of people I consider intellectual heroes.  Ludwig Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Immanuel Kant, Albert Einstein and Kurt Goedel, all Germans.  With such a rich intellectual history, I can’t think of a more interesting place to go.