A philosophical theory cannot touch human reality in the same way that human reality is real for me. Reality is real to me not as a theory. If I want to understand human reality as fully and deeply as I can, I must go beyond theories. I can use philosophical theories as a tool to help me on my way, but at some point I must also transcend them.

A little wave cannot capture the ocean with its theories, but it can understand the ocean in other ways. It can “resonate” with the ocean just as I resonate with a familiar landscape, just as I understand an old friend. I can feel within me the ocean’s movements, I can respond to its storms, I can resonate to the tide, to the hidden motions in the depths. Maps and charts, like philosophical theories, may be helpful – they can help me orient myself, or look in the right direction, or pay attention, but they cannot grasp the ocean. They are only maps, not the ocean itself. You cannot capture the realness of reality by thinking about it.

This is where philosophical contemplation enters the picture. Philosophical contemplation seeks the depth of human reality – after all, it is philosophy. It uses ideas and theories, like all philosophies do. But it uses theories not in order to capture reality in a book, but as a tool for a deeper understanding. It uses philosophical ideas to orient us towards resonating with human reality just as a wave resonates with the ocean. That’s why when we are in philosophical contemplation, we are not limited to thinking-about, or to abstract theories. We also understand reality in an intimate way, from the inside, by feeling it, responding to it, being inspired by it, by sensing its movement within us. When we are together with the big ocean, when we are moved by is movements, then we are part of the great depths and the great horizons.