Echoes of Eternity

How books are keeping the dead alive

Unless we are most ungrateful, all of those men, glorious fashioners of holy thoughts, were born for us; for us they have prepared a way of life. By other mens labours we are lead to the sight of things most beautiful that have been wrested from darkness and brought into light; from no age are we shut out, we have access to all ages, narrow limits of human weakness, there is great stretch of time of which we may roam. Since Nature allows us to enter into fellowship with every age, why should we not turn from this paltry and fleeting span of time and surrender ourselves with all our soul to the past, which is boundless, which is eternal, which we share with our betters?

(Excerpt from Letter XIV in Seneca’s - On the Shortness of Life)

There are probably not many books that you can not buy with £20. For such a small fee you can take a seat at the author’s theatre.

On show, their lives work.

Reading Julius Caesar you can time travel back to the Roman Empire, The Stoics beforehand. You can pick up Orwell’s 1984 and although some 40 years old you can marvel and get a little creeped out by just how right he was about Big Brother when he wrote this futuristic book back in the late forties.

You can immerse yourself in complete fiction and read some of the best stories people have ever imagined. You can pick up a book about how to tell better stories yourself.

Reading offers you exclusivity with the author. It’s just you, them and their work.

Reading offers us the opportunity to poke and prod, to ask them why and how. For roughly £20 you can ask Einstein questions about the laws of physics. You can ask Musk how he’s set up 4, Billion dollar companies. You can ask Steve Jobs how he came up with the vision for the iPod and if he ever imagined Apple would become such a huge part of people’s lives. Could he have imagined it?

There are books on schools of philosophy with some of the greatest ever thinkers no more than a fingertip away. Books on how to get rich, books on how to be happy. Books on just about anything and everything you could ever imagine and more just sitting there, waiting patiently for you to grab them. To immerse yourself in and learn.

To grow.

That’s what books do. When consumed properly and actioned they help people grow.

I Picked up Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations for £7. It’s the diary of the most powerful man in the world at the time and here I was peering into his written thoughts. His pain, his courage, candidness and humour. I got to ask him questions about courage and virtue. His words were there for me to read and no one else. The book can not tell you what to do, it can only show you, and guide you. The rest is up to you.

But wait, you don’t have to listen to him to Aurelius. You can fast-forward millennia to Franklin or Roosevelt. Churchill or Mandela. You can choose to be guided and taught by whomever you want.

For innovation Gates. For Philosophy Seneca. For human history Harari.

There are no limits to who your teachers can be.

But reading Gates alone won’t conjure up the next Microsoft and reading Seneca alone won’t help you conquer all of life’s trials and tribulations.

You have to act.

And just like the philosopher has to use his philosophy, the reader too has to use what they have read. Having courage or wisdom is something that’s lived not read. Knowing how to do the right thing and doing the right thing are two completely different things. Reading, just like words is meaningless without action.

Without movement.

So go and pick your teachers. There are many to choose from but pick not those who confirm what you think you already know, but choose those who challenge you. Who ask different questions of you. Those that will change your perceptions and challenge every atom in your body.

Those that make you think but more importantly, those that make you DO.

*Photo by Karolina Grabowska