I buy books at Christmas. I have 12 of them from Christmas 2024. Some of them are classic fiction that is entertaining and some of them are new fiction. One of them is advice about how to have better health. Some of these books are filled with timeless truths.

Believe it or not there are timeless truths even today despite the narrative wars in our media that can be so confusing. I have finished the health book, finished 3 fiction books (reading the fiction aloud after dinner with my husband) and now I am wading into what seems to be books filled with timeless truths.

It’s nice to be reassured that timeless truths still exist. One of these books is Quadrivium: the Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music and Cosmology by Miranda Lundy, Daud Sutton, Anthony Ashton and Jason Martineau. It is four books inside one cover. It is already wonderful even though I’m only in the second book.

Imagine living in the past without media distractions and finding rhythm in number ratios inside the sounds in music, or being inspired by looking at the lovely faces of classical geometric forms. Leonardo Da Vinci’s Ventruvian Man, paired with Circling the Square from 1490, well after the Roman age where man was the measure of all things. You can still overcome all distractions and see the world that way now.

The other book that is filled with timeless truths is How to Solve it: A New Aspect of Mathematic Method, by G. Polya. Don’t let the word Mathematic scare you away from this gem. It is filled with common sense approaches to solving problems with unknown causes. This applies to mathematical questions but could equally apply to mechanical problems or really any problem where a solution is needed and is being sought out. Human beings are problem solvers. This book is about formal questions that you or I can ask to get to answers. Don’t give up, this book says, try a question to pry loose some part of the answer.

Of course, if you want to understand ideological change over U.S. history, buy a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries: Liberalism, Pragmatism, Opportunism, by me, Mel Scanlan Stahl. It will bring you to where you can understand how we got to our political here and now.