Socrates, Jesus, Kierkegaard, and countless others have said some version of "The unexamined life is not worth living." or "Know thyself."

Well, I happen to have known many, many retarded people, psychotic people, uneducated laborers, people with various types of handicaps that kept them illiterate, and many similar groups of people whose conditions of life prevented them from being able to ask such questions.　 Actually, most of these people had no status or possessions, did the lowest level of minimally skilled work on none at, but they were kind and did no harm.　 I even found that minimally educated prison inmates, when they had a positive prison environment, were non-violent, were pleasant, and were very grateful when accepted and not disdained or regarded as dangerous.

Almost all of these people were reacted to by people above their station as though they were invisible or with repugnance and avoidance.　 I never met any of these who were not immensely grateful for any gift, especially the gift of positive regard for their mere existence.　 Some of my most valued lessons about life came from these people.

So, now I would say to you intelligent, well-educated ones, go ahead and examine your life if you wish, persist in your quest for inner peace, security, status, or salvation if you will.　 However, the truly noble thing would be to examine your world.　 Try looking at yourself and your world from the perspective of those invisible nobodies.　 Try looking at yourself from the imaginary perspective of a social anthropologist from a distant planet. 　If you do not see a great deal about your world, or your way of being as a product of that world, that needs to be changed, then I suggest you take some time to brutally, honestly examine your life and　 mercilessly begin to try to "Know Thyself."　 But, eventually, please come back to the task of examining your world.　 A set of fresh eyes to examine it with might help.