A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of... — Thomas Mann

A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries.

Author: Thomas Mann

Insight: We like to think of ourselves as independent agents charting our own course, but the truth is we're all swimming in the same current of our time. Your anxieties about money, your political beliefs, the way you spend your evenings scrolling through your phone—these aren't purely personal choices. They're shaped by the exact moment in history you happen to inhabit. Someone born in 1950 couldn't have been anxious about social media, not because they were smarter or more disciplined, but because that particular worry didn't exist yet. The quietly radical part of Mann's observation is that this happens "consciously or unconsciously." You might deliberately reject the values of your era, thinking you're being bold and original. But even your rebellion is a response to your time. Conversely, you might adopt beliefs thinking they're purely your own when you're actually absorbing them from the water around you. This isn't a reason to feel powerless—it's actually liberating. Once you notice how much your epoch shapes you, you can start asking better questions about which currents you want to resist and which you want to ride.

Source: The Magic Mountain, p. 8, 1924