Jason R. Pascucci

I've traveled widely, lived a fairly interesting life, and, at this point, have done most of the things on my "bucket list". I still dance a mean tango, fence on occasion, have rock climbed and done all manner of martial arts, and am now seriously into competitive shooting sports like USPSA and 3gun. But, and despite the active course of my life, I'm really a contemplative at heart. Plato's "examined life" is what I strive for - not just examination, not just unthinking activity, but a synthesis, with an ebb and a flow of each. Doing stuff is good, but I like chatting and companionship and looking at the things of the world, in wonder.

I'm a serious Roman Catholic because I'm convinced (after years of long and deep deliberation) of the truth of the Faith. Also, because I am a sinner, in need of salvation, and noone else has the words of eternal life.

"Pre-enlightenment" - By rooting truth in the mind ("Cogito ergo"), it seems Descartes, who followed John Duns Scotus and Martin Luther to reach his fallacious conclusion, went off the right path, which had been paved by Aristotle and brought forward by Aquinas. Aristotle/Aquinas roots the truth in the thing itself, to which the mind should conform (and this conformity of the mind to the truth of a being is called 'knowledge').

Because of this, I would suggest the whole "enlightenment experiment", which gave rise to modernism and post-modernism, should be relegated to the ashbin of history.

https://pascucci.us