Aletheia

Philosophers guided me through hopelessly quixotic questions with honesty and precision. Thinkers like Nietzsche and Kierkegaard shared passionate writings on how to live with shortcomings one did not choose. I was moved by their painstaking efforts to inspire the discouraged. Then amidst my voracious but haphazard readings, I came across an ancient Greek word, the philosophical concept of "aletheia," which encapsulates my affinity for Philosophy. "Lethe," meaning oblivion is transformed with a negative prefix "a" into a poetic expression of truth or unconcealment. "Lethe" is also a river of the Greek underworld and its water erases the earthly memories of a drinker. I see the word as an embodiment of the effort required to strip double-negatives to perceive an elusive kernel: the refusal to exist in oblivion like the dead. Philosophy prompts me to practice "aletheia." It brushes the dust off of axiomatic and familiar worlds and words. 

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