Ponder Place

We often will look back at societies now past, and chuckle at their naive beliefs. The world is flat … (I was going to list others, but I’ll let you guys add the list in the comments (that’s a big fat old hint that you should comment, much love)).

Many back in the day did believe the world was flat. This was the case for a number of reasons.

• Everyone else believed it - there is comfort in believing what everyone else does. Failure as a group is always much easier than failure as an individual, just ask these guys.
• There was nothing to prove to them otherwise - Given there were no telescopes, planes, satellites (with camera’s), or other means of viewing the earth from a great distance, those in the past had to rely on their eyes for all visible validation purposes.

There was a small group of people who didn’t believe the world was flat (okay maybe at first, but they were the first to suspect the theory was bunk), they would be sailors. Need I explain why?

Maybe its another one of those comfort things we humans like to protect ourselves with; but we often tell ourselves that we are living at the peak human evolution. This may be true in some aspects, for example I don’t think any civilization before us ever had fiber optic cabling, or the interwebs. On the other hand, we are quite a devolved civilization in other aspects, take the Greeks for example (not current day, but you know, back when they were at their peak). It has been said of the Greeks that they have already said everything there is to say, but they said it better (I think that comment is referencing philosophy, theory, etc).

We live our lives in theories. We don’t see them as theories because as far as we are concerned they are facts and truths. Yet every once in a while something comes along that provides irrefutably evidence that one or more of our societies “truths” is completely wrong.

Living based off these theories is not a bad thing at all. Its doing the best you can with what you know. The caveat is when we get so wrapped up we think we’ve reached the peak of existence. We need to realize we are really only living at a fraction of our potential.