The Digital Rennaisance

I can’t help but wonder what artists, thinkers, and visionaries from the past would think of today’s world.

Would Alan Watts have a podcast?

Would Marcus Aurelius be Twitter famous?

Would Nietzsche do public speaking gigs about his New York Times bestseller?

Many people think they would “reject the world” and retire to the woods.

I would argue the exact opposite.

They would realize the raw power of the internet to spread their ideas to the world because humans have an innate drive to survive on more planes of existence than the physical.

But that’s not the main question on my mind.

I’m even more curious about today’s creators and how they will be remembered.

The further removed an influential figure is from their time in history, the more mythical they become.

People stop perceiving them as a person and begin to see them as something more – as the arbiter of certain ideas, concepts, and philosophies.

They no longer live in the mind as someone who lived, but as an archetypal concept that feels as if they always were.

In the time of Watts or Aurelius, their language was normal.

It probably wasn’t perceived as “deep” and “mysterious” as we often think it is.

It was just normal language.

As language evolved with culture and society, so did our perception of the teachings of old.

In 100 years from now, language will see substantial changes yet again, and today’s creators will be perceived as ancient artifacts.

Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, and Mr. Beast have all added their own thread to the cultural tapestry we continue to create.

But who will be in the next generation of creators?

I’ll let your imagination run wild to answer that question.

But I believe the landscape of public intellectuals will change as a whole.

Those we hold with high regard in our mind will diversify based on community and self-interest.

For every one Marcus Aurelius, there will be ten Joe Rogans.

But the Joe Rogans will all attract different types of followers based on their unique perspectives and personality.

They will all talk about the same thing via internet content, but the teachings will be vastly different due to their personal experience.

Every creator will distill their expertise and attract a school of students that resonate with their teaching style.

Creators will evolve and their following will evolve with them.

The Emerging Digital Society

Every single person that was remembered throughout time had one thing in common:

They were massive value creators.

They were fountainheads of knowledge, perspective, and insight.

They didn’t attempt to hold their thoughts in their finite headspace.

They wrote, spake, marketed, and sold the potent ideas that wove the web of their worldview.

This is why I recommend studying those 4 evergreen skills and pairing them with your personal interests to succeed in the new renaissance.

Today’s world is different.

You have access to the internet.

The internet.

The revolutionary invention that people see as normal parts of their lives.

The thing that distracts people from their potential but is the exact tool to escape surface-level living.

There is an emerging digital society.

The world wide web continues to develop in unforeseen ways and I see it as a next step in human evolution.

You’re either providing value online or you are putting it off until you are forced to for survival.

Over the past decade digital tools and aids have become such a part of our life that we didn’t even realize we are half-robot.

Of course, this comes with ramifications that the ancient masters warned about.

Mechanical and mindless living is the antagonist of a good life.

The internet must be used and it must not use you.

The power has shifted back into the hands of the individual. You have the ability to:

• Become highly skilled in any (valuable) topic you want in 3-6 months.

• Form a high-level network that feeds you opportunities. This was impossible with prior barriers of physical location.

• Attract an audience to your life’s work so you can get paid to do what you enjoy.

Humans solve problems to evolve, and I genuinely believe we have problem-solved our way into the opportunity to do what we love at almost all times of the day (if you put in the work to do so).

Tomorrow we'll discuss how to build a legacy in The New World using novel ideas and cementing it in a vessel (a project).