Welcome. This is home for my collected self-published writings. In real life, I am a civil rights/employment law attorney by profession. I live in El Norte, just this side of the great and beautiful wall, in America’s Finest City. I write about travel, music, film and (lately) politics. I also write fiction. A lifelong student of philosophy, I try to infuse my essays and writings with insights from an examined life. The title comes from a quote attributed to Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Note: I have a deep distrust of quote attributions in the internet age, and I do not recall ever encountering this particular line in Plato’s works. Still, I like the quote, despite its rather judgy tone. Internally, I qualify it by silently tacking on an “IMHO” or a “to me.”

– Atticus West