We live in modern, cutting edge times. Each day, there are breakthroughs in neuroscience, microcomputing, medicine, and in how we make, save, and spend money. Our ability to beam information around the world, instantaneously, also means that we can get breaking news from all corners of the planet. Big data gives us the power to scrap enormous amounts of inputs and draw new insights from them. All this is wonderful and illuminating. We know things that we never thought we’d be able to know…and the person who doesn’t avail themselves of this is needlessly ignorant.
And yet…and yet.
As the great General Mattis said recently on Medal of Honor recipient Kyle Carpenter’s podcast:
My best new ideas come from very old books.
We’ve talked before about how they hide money in books. They also hide ideas. How incredible is it that an 1,800+ hundred year old diary like Meditations can teach a leader today about how to control their temper, how to work with difficult people, how to not be corrupted by power? How remarkable is it that one could have learned how to maintain their sanity and character in the COVID-19 pandemic by reading Marcus’ thoughts on the plague from his own time? Or that a fighter pilot like James Stockdale can rely on Epictetus in the middle of the jungles of South Asia all those years later? Or that a professional sports franchise can pick up a quote from him to tattoo on the walls of their facilities. Or that remote knowledge workers can adopt the habits and routine of the prolific writer and thinker Seneca.
Human beings have been doing the same things for eons. And the wisest minds who ever lived wrote down the best of what they figured out. If you want to stay informed, if you want to learn how to prepare for an uncertain future—forget about breaking news articles, forget about refreshing your twitter feed, forget about the arguing talking heads on CNN. Instead, drink deeply from the great texts of history. Learn from the distant past, from the wisest minds who ever lived. Search very old books to find your best new ideas.
