[hnfong]

A tangent on a tangent.

This is the first time I've read why Socrates didn't leave any writings. Which incidentally reminds me of a saying in Zen Buddhism of "do not establish words and letters" (see eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_scriptures ) If you squint hard enough, Zen's preferred method of teaching via teacher-student interactions very vaguely resemble the Socratic method.

So I wonder whether there's any more-than-incidental connection between the two, given https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism -- i.e. was Zen Buddhism a very distant offshoot of the Socratic philosophy and methods?

(Sorry, might be too much of a tangent. But hey, Steve Jobs probably held Zen in high regard :D)