My favourite word, is philosophy. Philosophy is a huge domain covering all of human history. Every civilisation has wondered why are we here? How did we get here? What does life mean? There are three major philosophical traditions – Indian, Chinese and Greek, but all of these relied on different sources of knowledge. 

In Greece, the creation of logic and systematic reason shaped experience. Socrates’s maxim that we should follow the argument wherever it leads, letting ‘our destination be decided by the winds of the discussion’. Greek philosophy has shaped all of western thought.

In India, emphasis was placed on knowledge attained by seers in states of heightened awareness and on revelations in the sacred texts, the Vedas. The Buddha walked a middle path, arguing that the only evidence available to us is that of experience, which makes speculation as to the nature of ‘ultimate’ reality fruitless. Nonetheless, he shared the orthodox Indian assumption that ordinary experience was illusory and effort is required to see beyond it. 

In China, history and everyday experience provided the benchmarks for truth. 

There is much to learn in philosophy, so many interesting views and opinions, and so many thought provoking takes on what it means to be human. For example, I would describe myself as a Pragmatist. I like to be grounded in reality and what can be seen to work. That’s what makes philosophy so profound. There is always something to learn, and yet we can find ourselves in it. It can validate us and make us more confident our world view, and that makes it a very powerful thing indeed.