Don't glorify struggle.

Don't become what philosopher's ask you to become, don't become Rich, successful, philosopher, artist, or anything because you just want that. Become what you like, but by carrying out what is it that you believe and find yourself to be satisfied with by carrying out duties in those directions and not thinking about results.

Plato made some arrangements for rescuing Socrates from prison and requested Socrates to run away from Athens as people of Athens don't deserve his ideas, intellect, and knowledge.

Socrates on the other hand decided to not let his ideas die by running, instead chose to let himself accept the death rather than his ideas.

People who ostracized Socrates and rejected his ideas are stupid. 

Well, people who glorify Socrates too are no more than stupid.

Socrates choose death, but it doesn't mean you or anyone having intellect like his too shall have to choose death/hate/rejection(from society)just to be recognized as an intellectual or a contributor, it's in one way arrogance. It's his choice as human and that has nothing to do with wisdom.

When Galileo Galilei tried to challenge the traditional beliefs of people who believed Sun revolves around our planet(or earth is centre of universe), people ostracized him and tried everything possible to make him feel alone, afraid, insecure, and to give up his remarks. 

Do you really think everyone, Everyone rejected him? 

Of course Not. There definitely would have been some people who would have praised and supported him, some who would have accepted that we're not genius or competent enough to justify these facts accepting their own shortcomings, And some who knew Galileo was right still decided not to speak, maybe because they don't want to spend their limited mental cognitive bandwidth on such topics because they have work to do, money to earn, hobbies to pursue, and so on.

A quote of Seneca that I really appreciate a lot:-

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."

Now, you can actually change anything in the place of religion in the above quote for describing today's world.

The fools will try to not let the community belief get challenged for maintaining their power and status without realizing there's no community benefits by being selfish, it just helps when a community has a common vision of helping each other out.

The wise will try his best to come up with new ideas to challenge the existing one's without knowing why he needs to challenge those existing idea's. What possible gain do you get at a personal level by proving your theories and ideas correct by challenging old or traditional ideas? It'll be smart if you know how to leverage your wise thinking ability to your advantage. But it's unnecessary if there's no gain for you and yet you try to challenge the ideology without possessing any form of wealth or power. 

And now comes the third category people which are Rulers (Wealthy People with a fair enough level of self awareness). These people have to be one of the smartest of all among the three categories of people. 

Rulers know what philosopher's are trying to convey is truth, they also know common people will not be able to understand these conveyed ideas well. And there is a high possibility of friction to occur in society for this particular idea. Which is why, Rulers know very well how can they leverage these situations, and people's emotions. 

My little advice is try your best to become both philosopher and ruler. Never choose only philosopher as an option. Creativity that resides in poverty helps almost nobody. Creativity needs freedom, and being Ruler gets you necessary freedom you need. 

There's no need for you to challenge ideas like the way people like Galileo or Newton or Socrates do, if you don't need to. Innumerable people on this earth have contributed to make civilization such an easy and enjoyable place, that it needs to be enjoyed. 

If you don't need to resist against beliefs or ideas, rightfully enjoy your life with comfort. No need to prove the world anything that doesn't hold importance in your heart.

 

LinkedIn: Jimmy Taravia 

Twitter: @Jimee_himself