by Leroy on April 2nd, 2023.
Old texts have been actively preserved for a reason. Think about the buildings which you have seen built and destroyed in your lifetime. How long did they last? Five years? Perhaps even twenty. Old texts are buildings which have lasted millenia yet have not been destroyed.
People are children compared to the age of these old books. How old is a child compared to words which are 2000 years old? Even someone as old as 80 is not even 10% of that age, they are 4%. Comparatively, we think of someone who is 20 years old to be "grown", for the most part, as they have lived roughly 25% of their life at that point.
Old texts are dismissed as impenetrable. This is a burden that must be carried, for how can a text written thousands of years ago speak to you now in this Age of Artificial Intelligence? In this article of mine, I use examples of "tipping", "grocery stores", and "cars" to drive home a singular point. What I was trying to convey has nothing to do with those things, of course. I wasn't merely illustrating the act of shopping at a grocery store for the sake of it. No, those illustrations are merely the tools of this age. Do you know the tools of every age? The days of the week, the Sun and Moon in our sky, and people who are the same now as they were thousands of years ago.
Do not dismiss old texts. If you do not understand them immediately, realize that perhaps they have been actively preserved for thousands of years because, collectively, we have found Wisdom in those words. Read The Republic, Metaphysics, the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, the Qu'Ran, the Old and New Testaments, and ask yourself what they are even saying. Then, after you understand, discuss whether they are right or wrong.