The highest mode of life: a proposal from 2500 years ago, relevant today in all dimensions.

If on the other hand I tell you that to let no day pass without discussing goodness [aretês] and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking and examining both myself and others is really the very best thing that a person can do, and that life without this sort of examination is not worth living, you will be even less inclined to believe me. Nevertheless that is how it is, gentlemen, as I maintain; though it is not easy to convince you of it….

[The jury decides for the death penalty]

If on arrival in the other world, beyond the reach of our so-called justice, one will find there the true judges that are said to preside in those courts…would that be an unrewarding journey?… [A]bove all I should like to spend my time there as here, in examining and searching people’s minds, to find out who is really wise among them, and who only thinks that he is…. You too, gentlemen of the jury, must look forward to death with confidence, and fix your minds on this one belief, which is certain: that nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death, and his fortunes are not a matter of indifference to the gods…. Now it is time that we were going, I to die to and you to live; but which of us has the happier prospect is unknown to anyone but God.

Socrates in Plato’s Apology, trans. H. Tredennick (revised)