I think you misunderstand the scale at which I’m thinking.

This guy has amused me for, say half an hour of reading the article, and for a bunch more while replying to the comments.

It’s possible I would have been as amused by a corporate drone’s story, but it’s doubtful. I read enough of those, so the marginal utility of one extra story is very low.

That said, I’ve met philosopher poets on the street before, and the encounters are always memorable.

Diogenes

A guy of whom we have only embellished apocryphal stories, and who I have the suspicion either never existed or wasn’t nothing as portrayed afterwards.

The various “legends” around him like meeting Alexander the Great and dying at the same time are also suspect as hell.

And for all of that, what we have is what exactly? A philosophical justification for being an asshole I guess? The world would have been pretty much the same if he had not existed.

Buddha

Socrates

Socrates was nothing like what is being talked.

He was wealthy, he participated in society, he even went to war.

Socrates was a stonemason --- effectively a skilled labourer or tradesman, but not wealthy. He was a footsoldier. In a culture where most were slaves, he was a citizen, but not a member of the aristocracy (notably contrasting with Plato). His long-suffering wife Xanthippe complained of his failure to provide for the family, and Socrates lived simply.

Socrates as a citizen was likely the third of Athens' four classes: slaves, metics, citizens, nobles. Not destitute, but neither wealthy.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socrates/

https://iep.utm.edu/socrates/#H1