Hi All,
I had what I feel is a very deep insight today, and wanted to share it... it's actually undigestible to the mind at first, but if you look very closely you may find a crack, a slot, where it can fit and start to work its way in.
Here it is:
***
Those who *learn from history* are doomed to repeat it.
***
OK, I'm gonna put my explanation right up here, if anyone's interested:
If you ignore history and keep experimenting, discarding the lessons of the past as you go, eventually you're going to achieve something great and nothing is going to repeat.
If you learn from history as you go, you have knowledge in your mind that won't change -- you know it's true. Each time that adds more inflexibility to your mind. The more you know, the more you're going to tend to repeat the same things over and over, because what you know (or believe worth doing) are always the same things.
Eventually, history will fall into a repetitive pattern based on knowledge taken from the past.
I believe we've been there since around the beginning of the 20th century, fwiw. It looks like progress, but nothing is really progressing except technology and machinery -- things that move or act mechanically, go back and forth, blink their lights, always do the same things. In the meantime there was Hitler and the various atrocities of the 20th century....
***
I suggest that we all know wayyyyy too much at this point, and it is beginning to stifle change and eliminate possibility. It is time to forget the lessons of history and begin doing it as we go along, a step at a time, our only history lesson being the previous step we took. It seems here that human knowledge is useful at times but *highly* overrated.
I had what I feel is a very deep insight today, and wanted to share it... it's actually undigestible to the mind at first, but if you look very closely you may find a crack, a slot, where it can fit and start to work its way in.
Here it is:
***
Those who *learn from history* are doomed to repeat it.
***
OK, I'm gonna put my explanation right up here, if anyone's interested:
If you ignore history and keep experimenting, discarding the lessons of the past as you go, eventually you're going to achieve something great and nothing is going to repeat.
If you learn from history as you go, you have knowledge in your mind that won't change -- you know it's true. Each time that adds more inflexibility to your mind. The more you know, the more you're going to tend to repeat the same things over and over, because what you know (or believe worth doing) are always the same things.
Eventually, history will fall into a repetitive pattern based on knowledge taken from the past.
I believe we've been there since around the beginning of the 20th century, fwiw. It looks like progress, but nothing is really progressing except technology and machinery -- things that move or act mechanically, go back and forth, blink their lights, always do the same things. In the meantime there was Hitler and the various atrocities of the 20th century....
***
I suggest that we all know wayyyyy too much at this point, and it is beginning to stifle change and eliminate possibility. It is time to forget the lessons of history and begin doing it as we go along, a step at a time, our only history lesson being the previous step we took. It seems here that human knowledge is useful at times but *highly* overrated.
Last edited: