I Guess I Will Quit My Day Job
Who Banished the Platonic Poets from the Republic?
In a quiet corner of the metropolis, where the city's hum dwindled to a whisper, Sophia settled onto her makeshift wooden chair. With each clack and ding of her typewriter, she wove words into poetry, a humble offering for the souls yearning for the rhythm of truth in a prosaic world. The sign beside her read, “Poet for hire,” an anachronism in the age of digital brevity.
Her fingers danced across the keys, crafting verses for those who sought meaning beyond the superficial chirps of modern conversation. The onlookers, drawn by the novelty of her trade, dropped coins into the tin can by her feet—a poet’s earnings in a realm where profundity was as rare as the machine at her fingertips. Sophia often mused, with a hint of whimsy in her smile, about the irony of her craft. For despite the city’s opulent veneer, it was here, in the simple exchange of coin for verse, that one of life's profound paradoxes was laid bare.
Words are the money of fools.
— Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
The echo of Thomas Hobbes’s sentiment rippled through Sophia's mind, a mantra that both mocked and validated her daily toil. The city, bustling with commerce and conversation, seemed to have forgotten the intrinsic value of words. They were traded, yes, but like counterfeit currency, inflating the mundane and deflating the profound.
Alexander passed by her street corner daily, a man of business, always in a suit that seemed to constrict more than adorn. His world was one of ledgers and contracts, where words were leveraged and debased, tools for negotiation and manipulation. Yet, each day, he paused by Sophia's sign, intrigued by the quaintness of her enterprise.
It was on a day painted with the brushstrokes of an overcast sky that Alexander's curiosity triumphed over his habitual reserve. He approached Sophia, requesting a poem not out of a genuine desire for verse, but as one would play a hand in a game of chance—out of a whimsical bet with himself. He offered her a crisp bill, the kind that bore the gravity of commerce, and said, “Convince me of the worth of your words, Poet.”
Sophia regarded him, her gaze piercing through the veil of his businesslike demeanor. Then, she typed. The rhythm of her old typewriter filled the space between them, and when she finished, she handed Alexander a slip of paper. The poem spoke of a life measured not in gains or losses, but in the fleeting moments of beauty and truth that words, when wielded by a poet, could capture and immortalize.
Alexander read, and for the first time in years, he felt the armor of his skepticism relent. The words before him were no mere commodities; they were a currency of a different realm—one that bought not goods, but glimpses of the sublime.
As he walked away, the poem clutched in his hand like a talisman against the drudgery of his world, Alexander realized the joke was on him. For in seeking to challenge the poet, he had unwittingly bartered away his doubt for wonder.
And so, Sophia continued, a platonic poet in a pragmatic republic, banished not by decree, but by the collective amnesia of a society that had deemed her art a charming relic. Yet, in the hearts of those like Alexander, her words began to rekindle a long-lost reverence for the lyrical tapestry of life—a tapestry woven by those who understood the true worth of words.
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Heraclitus
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