Perhaps a blog is a better way to publish thoughts than a CMS-based personal website. A few years ago I created a personal website for myself, http://www.johnrdorazio.altervista.org, as a personal archive, a place for experimenting with web programming… and I also thought for publishing my thoughts. But at this point I believe a blog serves the purpose better, at least as regards this last aspect. So I am opening the blog as well (oh, and I abandoned Windows Live Spaces a few years ago already; I have become a fan of Google and have taken a dislike to all things Windows.)
It was not easy to choose a title for the blog, and I do not know whether I will keep the current one, “Sal et Humus,” but in the meantime I will explain its meaning. “Sal” in Latin is salt, that very common element in cooking and in the preservation of foods. Salt gives flavor. Salt makes things interesting. In the right quantity, it arouses the pleasure of eating a meal. Hence the analogy with wisdom. Salt “gives flavor”; wisdom is the flavor of life, of science and of knowledge. It is the fruit of experience and knowledge together. The wise person is one who is experienced, who has experience; the wise person is one who knows, who has knowledge. The wise man is the one who sets out in humble search of the truth and opens himself to others in order to seek it together with them.
Man, by definition, is wise, “homo sapiens sapiens.” And who is man? What is human? What does “humanity” mean? The root of the word is this: “humus.” And here is the other aspect of the title. Humus means soil; it means the place of origin, a place of growth, a fertile place, a “moist” place in which life can be born. From “humus” derives, in addition to “humanitas,” also “humilitas.” From humus also derives “humor.” Humanitas, humilitas, humor, humus. It is all connected. Being humble means knowing that one does not know, and as Socrates said, the wise man is the man who knows that he does not know. The man who knows that he does not know is the man who seeks to know more. Being human means being magnanimous and compassionate; it means appreciating the culture of man and of human society. It means having an all-round knowledge, a “humanism” that believes in the value of everything that belongs to man, promoting a strong anthropological culture, believing that man is capable of good and is more fully man when he lives according to the natural law inscribed in his soul.