Great thoughtful article. It's hard to be human. Two points: 1) It would be interesting to meditate on the correlations between all these habits and worries that we have and the evolutionary survival mandate. I suspect at least some of the things we do and feel are due to a deep collective trait that has been selected by evolution over millions of years. I think a discussion of evolution would only enrich any philosophical argument. 2) Did Zeno wrote a "Republic" too? I thought Plato wrote that one. Cheers!