But as it happened, I figured that I had outgrown the title. It was also probably a bit superfluous, given that my name was listed elsewhere, so, as ends up happening to most superfluous things, it was cut. The new name is tutto va bene. I first came across this phrase in year 11, when I was doing a family history album for a Level 2 History internal (standards 2.1 and 2.2.. I still remember). Anyway, during my 'research', I came across this book about the history of Italian immigration to Wellington. The title was Tutto va bene, which means "everything's going well".
I think it describes my personality and general character development through life quite well. I'm mean-reverting. Where I am and how I feel about life tends to change from time to time, but it always reverts back to one viewpoint and outlook. Particularly since I started Law School properly (2009), I feel like I've been spending too much time panicking/stressing/making work for myself, and not a lot in self-examination (more on this later), and so I entered a bit of a depression/recession etc, but now I'm just reverting back to the mean again. It's quite comforting. Life is good. Tutto va bene.
Also in high school, though not for L2 History, we studied Socrates. I really disliked (Plato's portrait of) Socrates. I just imagined these poor ancient Greeks, strolling through the agora, going about their daily business, when all of a sudden a nutty man in ragged clothing would start questioning them about something. Had I been in Euthyphro's position, I would have been extremely annoyed. All I wanted to do was make a statement on, in Euthyphro's case, piety, and this arrogant fool starts questioning me, seemingly for the sake of it more than anything else. The reason for all of this, supposedly, was that the unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates' badgering meant that Euthyphro had an opportunity to 'examine' his position, so to speak, and rethink it and then improve on it. My year 12 self found this rather dramatic. In fact, I still do. Surely an unexamined life, inferior as it may be, is not 'not worth living'? Excuse the double negative. It also seemed quite self-indulgent. While the Sophists, criticised heavily by Plato for litigious deception, were out seeking excellence in all they did, Socrates and co were examining their lives. I dunno. Something about the former approach seemed a bit nobler to me.
But I think Socrates had a point. While I still wouldn't go as far as saying that the unexamined life is not worth living, I would say that there is huge importance in examining one's life. It's especially important because for the last three years I had been (not so?) happily studying lots of things and now I need to decide what I want to do with my life so that I can plan accordingly. Law honours? Economics honours? Finance honours? Ahhhhhh. I guess I'm actually quite lucky that I have this dilemma, rather than being forced into once path.
That's a bit of a digression though. I guess the point is that sometimes you have to take time and reflect on who you are and what's important. I hadn't self-examined for a while, but now that I have, I've reverted to my 'mean' position. Hopefully, continued self-examination will keep me there. But not too much; I wouldn't want to end up like Socrates. Nutty old fool.
PS: On the subject of mean-reversion. Yes, it does disgust me mildly that I'm describing my personality with a financial term, used to describe market expectations. Never mind.
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