9.9 Cleaning the Toilet & Socrates

by Eric Chaet

I have to clean the toilet, shower, clean my teeth
first — while continuing to provide for my self
& care for my wife who has been sick for weeks
& who will not hear of what I’m doing in life —
she can’t consider it, it makes her scared
tho she never admits to fear —
she’s struggling to redeem her own life
it’s more than she can handle — that’s not unusual —
she just races along & shuts her ears
almost everyone does likewise almost always.

Socrates’ wife, it’s said
threw a flower-pot at his head.
What I’m doing is unlikely to succeed —
no one’s done it, yet.
I can hardly even transact trades with anyone
without being taken advantage of.
My mind’s been too much on other things, so far
& their relation, meaning, what they’ll lead to
or be maybe made to lead to
if one were wise & made oneself unusually capable.

But I’m not even caught up with engines & motors
& inter-geared corporate & financial infrastructure.
I lack even average purchasing or bargaining power.
My work is not in demand.

Still, I need to get my estimate of Socrates coherent
else he’s as much a distraction
tripping up my regimen of transformation
as digitization, A.I., Putin, Elon Musk, or Donald Trump
or social media, or what’s on sale briefly only.

Socrates, it’s said, had no shirt or shoes.
Yet, he was one of the citizens, no slave.
An infantryman defending Greece from the hordes
commanded by the Persian emperor
he stood still amid swords, shields, spears
stones whizzing by his ears
& visions of Achilles’ glory at Troy
hundreds of years previous, per Homer —
apparently for hours, it seemed to others
but probably surprising minutes disruptive ever since.

The Oracle at Delphi said young Socrates was wisest.
He doubted it, & sought wiser ones
but found only egotists who imagined they were wise
which made them more foolish than he
so he guessed that’s what the Oracle meant
or should have meant.

Among the affluent of Athens, the sophists
charged money for instructing youths how to succeed —
but they didn’t understand life’s purpose
or know what virtue, courage, or justice were.
Some cynical, some just conveniently self-deluded —
they took money from youths
before whom, young Plato among them
Socrates unpicked their arguments, for free.

Although that didn’t prevent Athens’ demise —
or the demise of every polity ever since —
whatever the pretensions or beliefs —
it delighted Plato, who’d make of Socrates
a hero to those since
unwilling to trade what might & ought to be
for a lot of pottery, olive oil, esteem, & authority.

Socrates must not have eaten whatever he wanted
or as much or when — I don’t, so I suppose.
He’s a hero to some of us ever since
& was in the hours before his death
when he gave speeches about his value to Athens
& about his likely immortality.
But the days of his life of which we know so little
had to be sad & discouraging, mainly —
a kind of never-ending war no one saw him fighting.

He didn’t live in the glory Plato created for his memory.
He must have felt himself a loser most of the time —
he never joined apparent winners, or ever was defeated.

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