5 ms·

> Read old books, preferably books published before the 1900s, it really alters your psyche to realise how different things were just 100 or so years ago. It's

> Read old books, preferably books published before the 1900s, it really alters your psyche to realise how different things were just 100 or so years ago. It's funny the author mentions this, because when I read old books I have the opposite reaction: I realize how similar life is and how little things have changed. We have new technologies and better infrastructure, but people's behaviors, thought patterns (particularly the negative ones, we just have names for a lot of them now), and ultimately the meat that makes us human has not changed one bit.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
I have a way of thinking about this that I developed in connection with travelling but also applies (for me) to reading older works. Consider two biologists. One is a molecular biologist and when they look at the living world, they are amazed by how almost everything is the same. Molecules, cell structures, chemical reactions ... almost all (visible) living things are incredibly similar. Now consider our other biologist, this one a zoologist. They look at the bodies and lives and eating habits and reproductive behaviors of whales and ants and eagles and snakes and are amazed at the vast diversity and range the living world presents. So who's right, the molecular biologist or the zoologist? Is (almost) all life fundamentally the same, or is it incredibly diverse and different? The answer, obviously, is that neither of them are right. They each are looking at the same phenomena in different ways. When you travel, or when you read and old book, you will notice that in general, people wake up, eat some food, start the business of the day, eat some more food, socialize a little or a lot with others, take in a little (or a lot) of culture, sleep. They have children. They live in homes. They (mostly) wear clothes. This is the "molecular biology" view of other lands/times. If you start focusing in on precisely what they eat, how they move from one place to another, details of their clothes, the nature and duration of friendships, the types of activities they do, the role of gender and age and beliefs and climate and soil ... you start to see enormous variation across space and time. This is the "zoologist" view. People are all remarkably similar and all remarkably different. That's true whether you look around the world, or back in time. And then of course, there's the French distillation of all this: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose ("the more things change, the more they stay the same").
- ativzzz 6y ago
  Nice way of thinking about things, though > The answer, obviously, is that neither of them are right I'd say both of them are right, they're just looking at the phenomena at different levels of abstractions. That's what makes our lives so complex.
yesenadam 6y ago
Yes! Reading e.g. Plutarch's Lives (~100AD) about leading ancient Greeks and Romans, it's amazing how nothing's changed, in a lot of ways. And Democracy in America (1835-40) seems to me the book that reveals more clearly than any other the present day USA.
jniedrauer 6y ago
This has been my experience as well. Sometimes the mind that wrote those words over 100 years ago really jumps out of the page at you and it's the same exact feeling you might get talking to someone in the present time. We had the same exact wants, needs, anxieties, and petty egos back then.
- ativzzz 6y ago
  I've been reading Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky (19th century) and while some of the monologues are unrealistic, the general attitude of > We had the same exact wants, needs, anxieties, and petty egos back then. is exactly how I felt.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago

I have a way of thinking about this that I developed in connection with travelling but also applies (for me) to reading older works. Consider two biologists. One is a molecular biologist and when they look at the living world, they are amazed by how almost everything is the same. Molecules, cell structures, chemical reactions ... almost all (visible) living things are incredibly similar. Now consider our other biologist, this one a zoologist. They look at the bodies and lives and eating habits and reproductive behaviors of whales and ants and eagles and snakes and are amazed at the vast diversity and range the living world presents. So who's right, the molecular biologist or the zoologist? Is (almost) all life fundamentally the same, or is it incredibly diverse and different? The answer, obviously, is that neither of them are right. They each are looking at the same phenomena in different ways. When you travel, or when you read and old book, you will notice that in general, people wake up, eat some food, start the business of the day, eat some more food, socialize a little or a lot with others, take in a little (or a lot) of culture, sleep. They have children. They live in homes. They (mostly) wear clothes. This is the "molecular biology" view of other lands/times. If you start focusing in on precisely what they eat, how they move from one place to another, details of their clothes, the nature and duration of friendships, the types of activities they do, the role of gender and age and beliefs and climate and soil ... you start to see enormous variation across space and time. This is the "zoologist" view. People are all remarkably similar and all remarkably different. That's true whether you look around the world, or back in time. And then of course, there's the French distillation of all this: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose ("the more things change, the more they stay the same").

ativzzz 6y ago
Nice way of thinking about things, though > The answer, obviously, is that neither of them are right I'd say both of them are right, they're just looking at the phenomena at different levels of abstractions. That's what makes our lives so complex.

yesenadam 6y ago

Yes! Reading e.g. Plutarch's Lives (~100AD) about leading ancient Greeks and Romans, it's amazing how nothing's changed, in a lot of ways. And Democracy in America (1835-40) seems to me the book that reveals more clearly than any other the present day USA.

jniedrauer 6y ago

This has been my experience as well. Sometimes the mind that wrote those words over 100 years ago really jumps out of the page at you and it's the same exact feeling you might get talking to someone in the present time. We had the same exact wants, needs, anxieties, and petty egos back then.

ativzzz 6y ago
I've been reading Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky (19th century) and while some of the monologues are unrealistic, the general attitude of > We had the same exact wants, needs, anxieties, and petty egos back then. is exactly how I felt.