Archive for the ‘an unexamined life is not worth living’ Tag
To date, I’ve posted 165 questions in 11 installments. Those questions were relatively simple questions to deal with but the deeper into this list we go the more difficult they become. So, let’s get started with installment number 12 and see how you fare.
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- If you wanted to look very sexy, how would you dress?
- For $2000 would you be willing to stand up in a crowded restaurant and, for at least a minute, loudly berate a waitress for some trivial imperfection in the service? If not, consider how grateful the waitress would be if you did so and later split the money with her.
- If there were a public execution on television, would you watch it?
- If someone offered you a large amount of money for some information about one of your company’s products, would you except it? Assume you know you wouldn’t be discovered.
- Do you consider yourself well organized? How often do you have to look for your keys?
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- If you could increase your IQ by 40 points by having an ugly scar stretching from your mouth to your eye, would you do so?
- Would you be willing to do something very unsatisfying i.e. cleaning toilets, for five years if you were certain that the experience would afterwards bring you a deep sense of personal fulfillment for the rest of your life?
- What things are too personal to discuss with others?
- Walking along an empty street, you notice a wallet. It contains $5000 in cash but no name or address. What would you do? Would it alter your decision if inside you found the name, address, and picture of either a wealthy looking young man or a frail looking old woman?
- Would you prefer to be blind or deaf?
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- Would you be content with the marriage of the highest quality in all respects but one – it completely lacked sex?
- When was the last time you stole something? Why haven’t you stolen anything since then?
- How many of your friendships lasted more than 10 years? Which of your current friends do you feel will still be important to you 10 years from now?
- If you could mold to your liking your memories of any past experience, would you do so?
- Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you’re going to say?
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EXAMINE YOUR LIFE
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I know it’s been a while but here is installment number eleven to further assist you in the examination of your life. I hope these fifteen questions will prompt some interesting conversations between you and the person you share them with. As the famous Greek scholar Socrates once stated: “An unexamined life is not worth living.”
- If you knew a thermonuclear holocaust would occur in precisely twenty years and no one would survive it, how would you change your present life?
- When did you last cry in front of another person? by yourself?
- If, by getting a 2″ x 2″ tattoo, you could save five lives and prevent a terrorist attack, would you do so? If you were allowed to select the location and design, where would you have it placed and what would the design be?
- Someone you love deeply is brutally murdered and you know the identity of the murderer, who unfortunately is acquitted of the crime. Would you seek revenge?
- Would you be willing to give up all television for the next five years if it would induce someone to provide for 1000 starving children in Indonesia?
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- While arguing with a close friend on the telephone, she gets angry and hangs up. Assuming she is at fault and makes no attempt to contact you, how long would you wait to get in touch with her?
- What do you value most in a relationship?
- If you learned you would die in a few days, what regrets would you have? Were you given five extra years of life, could you avoid the same regrets five years hence?
- Do you judge others by higher or lower standards than you use to judge yourself?
- Would you be willing to make a substantial sacrifice to have any of the following: your picture on a postage stamp, your statue in a park, a college named after you, a Nobel prize, a national holiday in your honor?
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- On an airplane you are talking pleasantly to a stranger of average appearance. Unexpectedly, the person offers you $10,000 for one night of sex. Knowing that there is no danger and that the payment is certain, would you accept the offer?
- If you had to spend the next two years inside a small but fully provisioned Antarctic shelter with one other person, whom would you like to have with you?
- You notice a self-destructive behavior pattern in a friend who is clearly unaware of it. Would you point it out?
- If you had the choice of one intimate soulmate and no other close friends, or of no such soulmate and many friends and acquaintances, which would you choose?
- You become involved romantically but after six months realize you need to end the relationship. If you were certain the person would commit suicide if you were to leave and were also certain you could not be happy with the person, what would you do?
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MORE TO FOLLOW
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“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates
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Welcome to installment number seven. These questions appear a little harder to answer simply. Only a frank discussion will bring the answers, both good and bad. Have fun . . .
- Would you rather play a game with someone more or less talented as you? Would it matter who’s watching?
- Is there something you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?
- While in the government, you discover the President is committing extortion and other serious crimes. By exposing the situation, you might bring about the President’s downfall, but your career would be destroyed because you would be framed, fired, and suffer public humiliation on other matters. Knowing you would be vindicated five years later; would you blow the whistle? What if you knew you would never be vindicated?
- On a busy street you are approached apologetically by a well-dressed stranger who asks for a dollar to catch a bus and make a phone call. He says he has lost his wallet. What would you do? If approached in the same way by a haggard looking stranger claiming to be hungry and unable to find a job, what would you do?
- If by sacrificing your life you could contribute so much to the world that you would be honored in all nations, would you be willing to do so? If so, would you make the same sacrifice knowing that someone you thoroughly disliked would receive the honor while you went unrecognized?
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- Knowing you had a 50% chance of winning and would be paid 10 times the amount of your bet if you won, what fraction of what you now own would you be willing to wager?
- What are your most compulsive habits? Do you regularly struggled to break these habits?
- You know you will die of an incurable disease within three months. Would you allow yourself to be frozen within the week if you knew it would give you a modest chance of being revived in 1000 years and living a greatly extended life?
- You are driving late at night in a safe but deserted neighborhood when a dog suddenly darts in front of your car. Though you slam on the brakes, you hit the animal. Would you stop to see how injured the animal was? If you did so and found that the dog was dead but had a name tag, would you contact the owner?
- What do you most strive for in your life: accomplishment, security, love, power, excitement, knowledge, or something else?
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- An eccentric millionaire offers to donate a large sum to charity if you will step completely naked from a car onto a busy downtown street, walk four blocks, and climb back into the car. Knowing that there would be no danger of physical abuse, would you do it?
- How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people?
- Is the fact that you have never done something before increase or decrease its appeal to you?
- Would you be willing to give up sex for five years if you could have wonderfully sensual and erotic dreams any night you wished?
- At a meal, your friends start belittling a common acquaintance. If you felt their criticisms were unjustified, would you defend the person?
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THE QUESTIONS KEEP GETTING MORE INTERESTING
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“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates
It’s once again time to introduce installment number seven of this series. As I’ve posted them, I’ve found the conversations between myself and my better-half to be quite interesting. Some of my answers have surprised her and some of hers have surprised me. That’s a good thing for any relationship when after twenty or more years together you can still be pleasantly surprised by each other. Let’s get started . . .
- One hot summer afternoon, while walking through a parking lot at a large shopping center, you notice a dog suffering badly from the heat inside a locked car. What would you do?
- Do you feel ill at ease going alone to either dinner or a movie? What about going on a vacation by yourself?
- If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living?
- For $20,000 would you go for three months without washing, brushing your teeth, or using deodorant? Assume you could not explain your reasons to anyone.
- Would you rather die peacefully among friends at age 50, or painfully and alone at age 80? Assume that most of the last 30 years would be good ones.
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- If you were to discover that your closest friend was a heroin dealer, what would you do?
- Is it easy for you to accept help when you need it? Will you ask for help?
- If you were helping to raise money for charity and someone agreed to make a large contribution if you would perform at the upcoming fundraising show, would you? If so, what would you like to perform? Assume the show would have an audience of about 1000 people.
- Would you have one of your fingers surgically removed if it somehow guaranteed immunity from all major diseases?
- Would you like to be famous? In what way?
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- How do you picture your funeral? Is it important for you to have people mourn your death?
- Which of the following restrictions could you best tolerate: leaving the country permanently, or never leaving the state in which you now live?
- You, your closest friend, and your father are on vacation together, hiking in a remote jungle. Your two companions stumble into a nest of poisonous vipers and are bitten repeatedly. You know neither will live without an immediate shot of antivenom, yet there is only a single dose of antivenom and that is in your pocket. What would you do?
- Where would you choose to be if you could place yourself anywhere on a scale from 1 to 10, where one is hardship, struggle, and extraordinary accomplishment and 10 is comfort, peace of mind, and no accomplishment. Why? Where are you now?
- If you could choose the sex and physical appearance of your soon to be born child, would you do it?
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HAVE FUN WITH IT
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