Over time I have learned to observe words from a different angle. Not just in their etymology, but in the nuances of meaning, usage, and what a word represents and can represent. A friend of mine, whom I have mentioned on other occasions, paid close attention to etymology. Sometimes with different nuances from mine, but with an important depth. In some of our conversations, which I miss, we managed to approach topics in a way that seemed alternative on the surface but was actually very profound.
Because understanding the meaning of a word, its origin, helps us truly understand it. It sounds obvious, and yet we often forget it.
The weight of a word: to internalise
Take the word internalise. Look up its meaning in the dictionary, look at the etymology. The verb to internalise etymologically touches fields like spirituality and psychology, apparently distant from each other. Only apparently. Both offer nuances worth pausing on. When we manage to bring a concept, any concept, truly inside ourselves, we are performing an act of internalisation.
Think of philosophy. If I cite Socratic maieutics or Kant’s categorical imperative and simply apply them mechanically, it means I have to know them, have to remember them, have to have cognitive energy available every time I use them. Many have-tos. If instead, after applying them multiple times, I understand them a little more each time, deepen them, study them, and do not use them mechanically, my brain starts turning them into automatisms. Like learning to ride a bicycle.
The problem is awareness
Cycling and driving become so natural that if someone told us “well done for internalising driving” we would almost be taken aback. With the mind it works differently. We do not always feed our minds correctly. Tiredness, time, the thousand things to manage, often make not going deeper the default.
We read Sun Tzu, understand two quotes, maybe apply them, then stop there. We play Go but treat it as a sealed-off activity, disconnected from life, as we might approach Crusaders Kings 3 or Victoria 3, extraordinary strategy games with enormous systemic depth, if we treated them as mere pastimes. We use philosophy with AI at work but think of it as a technical tool, almost like prompt engineering, applying it in an aseptic way. Our brain catalogues it as a work skill and nothing more. Sometimes, through sheer repetition, some internalisation arrives anyway because repetition helps regardless. But without awareness it is a slow, partial, fragile process.
Without awareness we cannot make abstractions. We apply knowledge successfully in the context where we learned it, but we cannot vary it. When conditions change we find ourselves back to square one.
When internalisation actually shows
Over the past year, thanks to philosophy moving from work into personal life as a genuine escalation, I have seen this on my own skin. Two recent episodes showed me what it means concretely.
The first was a complex work situation that had reached a breaking point after months of tension. On the other side, someone using used-car salesman techniques, glossing over the past, steering toward negotiation, trying to walk away with unilateral gain. I used Socrates in at least two ways: with questions to shift the conversation and prevent it from becoming a mere negotiation, and with an approach modelled on the counter-sophist method when I pointed out the emotionality driving his choices instead of substance. Dewey came in because pragmatically, moving in a reticular way during the conversation, I arrived at a proposal that became the foundation of the new agreement, eighty percent exactly as I wanted. Gadamer closed the circle when a genuine synthesis emerged, the working climate improved, and the main problem was removed. The amusing part? The other person built a narrative in which he believes he won. That is fine. I laugh about it.
The second episode happened during GIF, Giovani In Festa, the volunteering weekend organised by Croce Verde. An aggressive person, loud voice, vulgar language, lashed out at us over something easily resolvable. Here I used Socrates mainly: questions, low voice, calm. I was not sure whether the calm was attributable to a specific philosopher. It is, actually. It is Stoicism, specifically Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. The principle that you can only control your own reactions, not those of others, and that lowering your tone in response to someone raising theirs is one of the most effective de-escalation techniques Stoicism describes explicitly. I did not name it in the moment, but I lived it. That is internalisation. The person eventually scaled back, almost apologised, saying “that is just how I am, I shout, but two hours later we share a beer.” An unacceptable statement given the language used, but the worst had been avoided. I found out afterwards that this person was also known to get physical. Managing it the way I did, with only voice, questions and calm, was a result.
What to do, concretely
When we play, study, work or read, let us pause on what we are doing. Analyse it, even when tired. Step by step, without expecting everything at once. And let us try to internalise consciously.
It sounds obvious, it sounds tiring. But over time, even just naming that word and making the action conscious helps the mind make that climb. To improve. To bring what it knows into places it did not think it could reach.