Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of t... — Voltaire

Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.

Author: Voltaire

Insight: We like to think of ourselves as independent thinkers, skeptics who question everything around us. But if you pay attention to what you actually believe, worry about, or find obvious, you'll notice how much of it comes straight from the water you're swimming in. The clothes we think look good, the jobs we consider prestigious, the way we parent, what we fear—these aren't conclusions we reasoned our way toward from first principles. They're the default settings of our moment, absorbed so thoroughly we forget they were ever choices. What makes this observation unsettling is that it applies to you and me just as much as it did to people in Voltaire's era. We're not special for having internet access. We're still embedded in our time's assumptions about productivity, success, ambition, and what matters. The scary part isn't that this is true—it's recognizing which of your strongly held beliefs might simply be the flavor of this decade rather than something you've actually thought through. The useful takeaway isn't despair. It's that becoming aware of the current you're in is the first real step toward occasionally swimming against it. You can't escape your age entirely, but noticing it is possible.

Source: Siècle de Louis XIV, 1751