For about thirty years, I dragged around an old copy of Voyage of Discovery: A History of Western Philosophy. It was assigned reading in an intro class in philosophy, I’d read it a couple of times, and parts of it more than that.

But then there came a time to let it go. To empty my cup.

It took over a year, but I scribbled it out with dozens (and dozens) of black ballpoint pens. This book had about 600 scribblable pages, and only the illustration of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave remains. Since this photo was taken, it has been radically altered to make a psychological point.

Plato was a super smart Greek philosopher who created a story about how we perceive reality that we call The Allegory of the Cave.

The basal ganglia is a set of connected brain structures that coordinate to handle many body functions, including movement. It’s also found to play a role in decision-making, emotional regulation, and more.

This is a Descartes quote. I’ve scribbled it out, but took a photo before I did. It says,

I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundation.