What Is the Cost of the Good Life?

Throughout history all over the world, humans have been searching for their own “good life”. What each person’s good life is and what it takes to attain that life differs greatly across all aspects of humanity, causing it to require much time and effort for each person to discover their concept of a good life. This makes sense because of the vast differences in beliefs, experiences, and opinions that also play a part in constructing a large gap in social and financial statuses. For every human the sacrifices and benefits that come with finding one’s good life are considered the cost it took to get there, and each cost has a different amount of an impact on a person’s journey. Finding a partner and love seems to be a common theme throughout the readings in the course, and it almost always comes at a cost of missing an important opportunity. In Plato’s symposium, the characters all give their own praise of the god of Love, and each has their own unique viewpoint. Phaedrus believes that Love is an old god who promotes virtue in people, whereas Pausanias believes that Love is two gods, Common Love and Heavenly Love who are both objects of simple and sexual desire, respectively. The entire night is spent drinking and discussing what Love really is, ending with Alcibiades trying to seduce Socrates but never succeeding. Socrates claims he cannot be seduced because he is more focused on finding wisdom, which is also the reason that after drinking all night he is neither drunk nor hung over. All of the men focused on what love is and drank all night to enjoy themselves, and in the process forgot that their own wisdom could help them to find what makes them happy and help them to discover their good life. In pursuing love as the answer to their good life, Socrates’ friends lost their wisdom and passed out drunk while Socrates was sharing his wisdom with them. Because of this, the guests at the dinner party missed out on valuable advice for life and finding their good