Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
What happens when we are cut off from the sources of wisdom? In this reflection, Mari Otsu describes the consequences of being denied direct access to the great texts of the tradition. Deprived of engagement with primary sources—those works that nourish the soul and point it toward ascent—he fell instead into the herd mentality of modern adolescence, where social media distorts friendship into spectacle and rejection into terror.
Here we glimpse how the absence of true education leaves the human spirit vulnerable: vulnerable to ideology, to despair, and to the urge to destroy in the mistaken hope that destruction can ease suffering. This testimony lays bare the profound stakes of education, friendship, and the search for meaning.
What happens when we are cut off from the sources of wisdom? In this reflection, Mari Otsu describes the consequences of being denied direct access to the great texts of the tradition. Deprived of engagement with primary sources—those works that nourish the soul and point it toward ascent—he fell instead into the herd mentality of modern adolescence, where social media distorts friendship into spectacle and rejection into terror.
Here we glimpse how the absence of true education leaves the human spirit vulnerable: vulnerable to ideology, to despair, and to the urge to destroy in the mistaken hope that destruction can ease suffering. This testimony lays bare the profound stakes of education, friendship, and the search for meaning.
