How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Well, I have these goals. I want to be a champion gymnast. I want my team to win the national championships. I want to graduate in good standing, and that means books to read and papers to write. What you seem to be offering me instead of staying up half the night in a gas station, listening to—I hope you won't take this as an insult—a very strange man who wants to draw me into his fantasy world. It's crazy!" (P.197)
When the story starts, Dan is totally full of goals. Look at all the things he wants to accomplish. Socrates is going to send him in the exact opposite direction, but the idea of having no goals, hopes, or plans is so foreign to Dan that it seems like a fantasy world. Anyone who has been through a conversion, say from one religion to another, is familiar with just how much another philosophy can seem unreal.
Quote #2
The world was peopled with minds, whirling faster than any wind, in search of distraction and escape from the predicament of change, the dilemma of life and death—seeking purpose, security, enjoyment, trying to make sense of the mystery. Everyone everywhere lived a confused, bitter search. Reality never matched their dreams, happiness was just around the corner—a corner they never turned.
And the source of it all was the human mind. (1.107-108)
This key passage, from one of the early visions Socrates gives Dan, shows up in multiple of our Themes. The point in this case is that unhappy people chase their dreams, and according to Socrates' philosophy, that never works. You have to give up seeking achievements or reasons or meaning in order to be truly happy.
Quote #3
"If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change, free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is a law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality [...] Life is not suffering; it's just that you will suffer it, rather than enjoy it, until you let go of your mind's attachments and just go for the ride freely, no matter what happens." (2.25-27)
You might be familiar with this lesson from Buddhism or Zen. The basic gist is that we get our hearts set on (attached to) things turning out a certain way. And that's why we suffer, since we start saying, for example, "I'll be happy if only I get into that college or graduate school", or "I'll be happy if I win this contest"—but even if the dream comes true, happiness never seems to stay for very long. The way out of the dilemma is to give up goals entirely, according to Socrates.