On being a true individual

All things are now at their peak, above all being a true individual. It takes more today to make one sage than seven in years gone by, and more to deal with a single person than an entire nation in the past. - Gracián, Baltasar

 

If we think back to Aristotle, a true Polymath of his time, he conquered various sciences and philosophical path ways. Now with the rapid advancement of information, technology and science, it would take a person a life times study to scratch the surface of one strand of science, for instance, those that devote their lives to the study of the fruit fly.

 

New branches of Mathematics are occurring all the time, no one person could hope to have a thorough knowledge of all mathematics, perhaps in Plato's academy, where you could not enter without a working knowledge of geometry, you could master mathematics, but now, think yourself lucky if you call yourself master of a few branches.

 

To be sage now, with the world no longer your city, town or village, but rather the whole world, with new ethical and moral problems being unearthed on a daily basis, we cannot hope to be able to answer every dilemma satisfactorily, but then again, Philosophy never promised us answers, just more questions.

 

This being said, we should not be depressed by the thought that it is more difficult now to become a true individual, if anything, the Democratisation of information has made it easier for each of us to achieve our true potential to be an individual, even easier than those in the past. The hard work has been done for us, we just need to pick up where others left off and carve our own paths in history, no matter what that may be.

 

If we act with 'true selfishness' in the sense Adam Smith advocated, we can all leave an indelible mark on the world, it is simply choice as to whether or not we want to strive or not.