Why I Wanted to Write a Philosophical Book

I grew up in a household where life’s big questions were simply part of everyday life. Alongside our family’s medical background, my father in particular was philosophically active for decades. From early on, our dinner table conversations weren’t just about the day’s events, they were about the nature of things, about truth, justice, and meaning. As a teenager, I was lucky enough to have an extraordinary philosophy teacher, someone who knew how to make even Plato understandable. He showed me that even the greatest ideas can be traced back to a core: to what really matters.

That mindset never let go of me. Not even during my medical studies, which I combined with a Studium fundamentale: a philosophical thread running across disciplines. Later came law school, my work as an entrepreneur, and my responsibilities as a father. And the same question kept coming back: is there something that connects all these different areas?

And that very thought became the starting point for my later path as Dr. Ruben Stelzner, devoted to the search for timeless principles.

The Common Thread: Bringing Complexity Back to What Matters, Why I Had to Write a Philosophical Book

Whether in medicine, in law, or in business, I kept running into the same challenge everywhere: the world is complex. Often too complex. We lose ourselves in details, in specialization, in confusion. And in the process, the simple, foundational connections slip out of view.

Here’s what I believe: almost everything complex rests on a handful of fundamental principles. When we learn to recognize them, we gain clarity. It’s not about simplifying everything, it’s about grasping what’s essential. Or put differently: we have to learn to see the forest again, not just the trees.

Verlorene Weisheit is my attempt to do exactly that. I wanted to understand what remains, beyond trends, ideologies, and specialized knowledge. What’s the common thread behind all this diversity? What underlying order shapes our thinking, our actions, and our experience?

An Invitation to Search Together

We live in a time when knowledge is everywhere, and direction is in short supply. The old answers no longer hold, and the new ones are often still out of reach. That’s exactly why I believe we need to search for timeless principles now more than ever. For an inner compass, one that doesn’t tell us what to think, but helps us learn to think clearly again in the first place.

Conclusion: What It Means to Write a Philosophical Book

By the end of my journey, it became clear to me that this wasn’t just about personal experience, it was about something more fundamental: we need direction again, direction that goes beyond mere facts. That’s exactly what I set out to achieve with this book: make the search for timeless principles visible, and place it in a context that actually helps us today.

Writing a philosophical book, to me, means bringing order to complexity, highlighting what’s essential, and offering new ways of thinking. It’s an invitation to stop just accumulating knowledge, and instead find your way back to real wisdom.

If we set out on this path, we can gain clarity and stability, in a time defined by uncertainty. And along the way, we might realize that philosophy isn’t something distant, but something rooted right in the middle of life.

FAQ

How do you write a philosophical book?

Writing a philosophical book means putting complex ideas into words that stay understandable and relevant. What matters most is finding a common thread that connects personal experience with philosophical principles.

Do you need a philosophy degree to write a philosophical book?

No, what matters isn’t an academic background, but the ability to frame questions clearly and make concepts understandable. Experience from medicine, law, or other fields can open up just as valuable a perspective.

What topics work well for a philosophical book?

Topics that are timeless and universal work well: the search for meaning, truth, justice, but also the role of number symbolism or the connection between philosophy and mathematics. What matters is that the topic connects to real, lived experience.

Why write a philosophical book today?

Especially in an age of information overload, direction is often what’s missing. A philosophical book can help bring what’s essential back into view, and help you develop an inner compass.

In the video below, I talk about how this book came to be, why this topic means so much to me, and why I believe we need more wisdom now more than ever:

Image rights: Jan Schmiedel (cover image)