Why a Philosophy?

I qualified my Planetarium book as a Philosophy and Practice because for everything I built in the way of home planetariums, the BUILDING was but the tip of this enormous iceberg of THOUGHT.  Indeed, I could soak in the idea of planetariums in my house long before I knew how to achieve them.  Therefore, a kind of philosophy developed to explain WHY I wanted to do this.   Take other pursuits, this may not be that unusual.  Say you love to go fishing.   The philosophy behind fishing is what ..   its totally removed from everyday life..   its not necessarily goal oriented - most of the fishing I did with my father growing up was not about catching fish - we did it anyway, because its what we DID.  It was a way of life.  I grew up expecting to go fishing on vacation .  We had a boat.  I couldnt imagine NOT having a boat.   Fishing wasnt just an activity. It was a philosophy.  Now I'm pretty sure my dad never once thought of it this way, and maybe neither did I at the time.  But now from the perspective of growing up and looking back over the decades to my youth, I can gradually see the overall shape of the activity.  Actually sitting in a boat wasnt all of it.  It wasnt even the best part.   The idea behind it was the thing.  

Home Planetariums evolved a philosophy for me.  It would take years of actually fishing, actually making them, before I could see the philosophy at work behind them.  But it was there.  Like the dark between the stars, it was everywhere!