Without the legacy of our ancestors, we wouldn’t be able to accomplish NONE of the things we accomplish today
Obviously
If you still lived in a cave — chance are you wouldn’t be able to build your own pick up truck, then go to your local mall, built by man of your generation using techniques all discovered within their lifetimes
Same of course is true of IDEAS
This is why past, why legacy, while tradition, are underappreciated,
We stand on the shoulders of giants
We think it’s some fancy scientists quote
This quote applies to everyone alive
Everything we do relies on knowledge and work of our ancestors
Tradition is to be criticised, of course, for tradition can be backwards at the time, which can be hindering process
But it can ONLY be criticised after first acknowledging it’s immense power
With humbleness
They made those things
Developed those ideas
And those still work, still exist (which is why you’re even able to criticise them)
Nothing you’ll build, you’ll create, will have stood the same test of time WITHIN your lifetime, by definition
What’s 300 years old is more tested than anything you created, because anything you created is no older than 70 years old, for sure
Therefore within your lifetime — NO IDEA of yours will had been as proven as the great ideas of the past
However, now, with all that out of the way,
OF COURSE you should still attempt to OUTDO the past
To IMPROVE upon it
To REVOLUTIONISE
And many-a-times DISCARD IT, destroy it
Because
again: by definition,
there is NO other way to move forward
That which improves something, means it obsoletes something else
We can say it embraces it and then builds upon it,
But there’s always SOMETHING that is rejected, epistemically
If nothing else — then belief that this is the best option, method, knowledge that currently exists — is relegated
It’s no longer the best option — not if it was improved upon
And this is of course the best case for the past, where it merely is built upon,
But often it’s rejected entirely
Because we find improvements which are NOT compatible with the past ideas, past methods
So there is always a degree of destruction, in IMPROVING
Therefore,
BOTH instinct are necessary, inexorable
If you can’t appreciate that which already is great — you’re wasting time building something that has literally 0 value. It’s already there. You improved nothing.
That idea was already there, available for free.
That product, that solution was already there, available, better and cheaper than your ‘revolution’,
But if we’re never foolish enough to attempt to make a change — then OF COURSE nothing changes
If anything, it degrades
This conservatism, protectionism, eventually backfires
Because life presents new challenges anyway. So eventually even that which was once great — becomes ill-suited for the problems of today
There are also exceptions to those rules,
There’s one advantage of reinventing the wheel… you VERIFY IT
In reinventing the same theory, the same idea, from the ground up, independently — you VERIFY it’s correctness, it’s validity,
Something other “believers” in that idea don’t actually do — they merely memetically espoused it,
They started from believing it, then learned WHY they ought to believe it
Also, in reinventing the wheel… sometimes you DO improve it
Sometimes it really IS what it takes to make something better — just build it completely anew
With that said, it must be acknowledged that it’s never “completely anew”, almost never,
It can look completely anew relatively to the contemporary methods, where you reject the methods of the last 50 years, for instance,
But it’s not anew in the sense that you reject all human discoveries, and again, build a pick up truck inside your cave, with sticks and stones
It’s never entirely anew, though it can be revolutionarily rebuild as compared to modern trends
Finally,
To profoundly understand something, again, it’s best to CREATE with it
Not merely watch it, not merely repeat it — but to actually create it, or with it
Which is again, why it’s so useful to tinker, to play with concepts, and play with technology, and play with engineering, and play with philosophy
Furthermore, the NEW is not necessarily so far away
The universally USEFUL NEW, useful discovery, can be very far, or very close,
But USEFUL NEW which helps your life — is essentially what we do every day
EVERYTHING YOU DO in your life can be tinkered with, rediscovered, DONE BETTER
Therefore this spirit of creativity is not an optionality — it’s the default and inexorable mode of most problem solving
Life is complex enough that we get new problems all the time
Use what works on OLD problems, without overthinking
Then use creativity with myriad weird new strange problems we are faced with every day
Yes, yet again, instead of choosing a side, or even merely choosing balance of sides…
…I recommend balance of sides THROUGH DOUBLING DOWN on each side,
be MORE CREATIVE,
while LEARNING MORE, relying more on what is ALREADY KNOWN, ALREADY EFFECTIVE, ALREADY USEFUL
I want you to be PROGRESSIVE — AND CONSERVATIVE
I want you to be an ARTIST — AND an ARTISAN
I want you to be an ENTREPRENEUR — AND a BUREAUCRAT
I want you to PLAY and have FUN and CREATE — AND I want you to follow the INSTRUCTIONS, line by line, and do it THE PROPER WAY
I want both
And MORE of both
Being BETTER at both
Being better at going very deep into the ocean of existing knowledge, to find what you need
AND being better at going very deep into the dark forest of unknown, ready to discover something completely new