Philosophy
Athena's owl was seen as a creature that could see in the dark in all directions,
symbolizing the philosopher’s ability to perceive secrets in plain sight,
which remain hidden to others in the "darkness" of their ignorance.
Everyone admires the concept of wisdom, but not everyone loves philosophy, which literally means "the love of wisdom." Many are just too busy doing the things necessary to survive in this world. You can talk to a starving person about philosophy all you want, but they will only pretend to listen if they think there will be food or cash forthcoming at the end of your privileged monologue. Sadly, I can offer neither food nor currency, but I can certainly monologue for hours because I have earned the luxury to pursue this love as my physical needs, at the bottom of Maslow's pyramid, do not overly concern me. Chances are, you are in the same situation if you are actually reading these words right now.
"Love of learning is the most necessary passion... in it lies our happiness. It's a sure remedy for what ails us, an unending source of pleasure."
Émilie du Châtelet
(1706–1749)
Her 1740 Institutions de Physique synthesized Newtonian physics, Leibnizian metaphysics, and Cartesian ideas, covering topics like gravity, space, and hypotheses; it was widely translated and debated. She also translated Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica into French, her version still used today.
"Let us choose for ourselves our path in life, and let us try to strew that path with flowers."
This love has become a passion, and then an obsession for me. I write and record everything on this website—Onstott's Onslaught—because this inner love of learning has become its own reward, and naturally I want to share this love with you, dear reader.
I have to attest that drawing geometry for no reason other that to feel its qualia upgraded me in ineffable ways I can't fully articulate. As Plato said, it created a space for the spirit of philosophy to grow. I felt this in my head, heart, and in the gut. It slowly transformed me, along with reading more books than I can remember the names of.
"Geometry draws the soul toward truth and creates the spirit of philosophy."
"It is through geometry that one purifies the eye of the soul."
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to engage with two activities which are largely seen now as a waste of time: drawing by hand, and reading books on paper or on a screen. I call these sacred anachronisms. These curious activities are open to all but only those with the time, space, and permission from their inner/higher selves tend to take up this mission. I can't promise any equal outcome, but things that seem impossible may become possible for to manifest in this mission. I must warn you that this mission never ends: you may seek and eventually find who you are, and what it all means to you, but then like me, you may circle back and try to educate others in this path, to share the love of wisdom.
“Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these one is wandering in a dark labyrinth.”
Galileo Galilei
(1564–1642)
"Mathematics is the language with which God wrote the universe."
