Even if it feels obvious in hindsight, the Covid-19 pandemic caught most of us by surprise.
But it should not have.
Because the history of our world is as much a history of pandemics as it is a history of wars and kingdoms.
By some counts there have been 249 pandemics since 1200 BC—one every 13 years. Of these, 24 have been major pandemics—one every 134 years. Pandemics like the Plague and Spanish Flu have shaped history profoundly.
Nobody who reads history should have been surprised by the pandemic.
Now I am not a lover of history. And I’m not arguing that all of us should read more history. Read what you like. But have a bias for old, foundational works in the genre that you like.
Because, as the history of pandemics illustrates, we can think decades in the future by reading centuries in the past.
Let me explain why. There are two reasons that ancient works are powerful tools for understanding our present and predicting the future.
First, ancient works are more likely to contain fundamental insights.
The only centuries-old works you can read are those that have survived centuries. And any work that persists through civilizations, disasters and time is likely to do so because it touches something fundamental about humanity.
And any work that captures fundamental truths about humanity is likely to help you build a better model of who we are and where we’re headed.
Second, ancient works are influential. By being around and being read, the ancient works that persist have cast a towering shadow on our culture.
Every R&B musician today is probably inspired by someone who was inspired by Stevie Wonder. Just like every philosopher in the Western Canon is three philosophical responses away from Plato.
Seeing the influence of these works is powerful because it helps us notice the subtle undercurrents driving our society.
If understanding modern culture is like grappling with an alien language, then knowing its key influences is like having the dictionary.
While it’s powerful to think decades into the future, this is the narrowest application of the powerful concept of looking centuries into the past to move decades ahead.
All our long-term projects are a kind of future prediction and would benefit immensely from us understanding the ancients.
For example, this idea is immensely powerful if you want to create work that lasts.
(While I’ll focus on creative work, you could apply this to building a product, designing a home, and many other long-term projects).
There’s a common misconception that the best way to gain an audience for your work is to be early on an upcoming trend and exploit the first mover advantage.
In fact, this is a treacherous path to success. Most trends are so fickle that it’s not worth being first. And spotting the trend that could lead to sustained success requires high mastery in itself.
There’s an easier way to come up with work that lasts.
Because the kind of work that lasts is the work that has already lasted for years, decades, centuries, millennia.
This is the Lindy Effect, which informally states that an entity is likely to last at least as long as it has already lasted.
NFTs have been around one decade, so they’re likely to be around for another. After that, no guarantees. The Bhagavad Gita has been around 2000 years, so it’s likely to be around for 2000 more[i].
The Lindy Effect occurs for the same two reasons we discussed earlier.
Works that last are influential and constantly referenced. This makes them more likely to persist. And the fact that they’ve stuck around usually indicates that they contain something fundamental about human beings. The kind of thing that doesn’t just fade away.
So, if you want to create work that lasts, make it old.
Or rather, make it something that could have been 20, 50 or a 1000 years older. Here are two suggestions for doing this.
First, choose your inspirations and interlocutors wisely.
People will probably still be talking about Nicola Tesla a hundred years from now, Elon Musk maybe not. And even if they remember none of the songs from today’s Hot 100 in the year 2060, humans will still be humming Moon River.
A second, more stylistic approach, is to model your work after the old. An easy way to start is to avoid references and choices that give away your work’s youth.
This why I prefer the word essays over blogposts and creative work over content[ii]. As the writer Nassim Taleb put it: if you want your work to be read in twenty years, make it sound like it’s twenty years old.
And we can stop there for now. I wouldn’t want to cut into your reading time. There are some really old books waiting out there for you.
God-speed.
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ENDNOTES
[i] The Lindy Effect was named by theatre actors who noticed that the plays that were most likely to keep running in theatres were those that had been running for years. They developed this idea over conversations at the Lindy café.
[ii] My gripe with “content” as a substitute for creative work of all kinds goes far beyond the fact that it is topical. Content is basically a marketing term. It is non-specific, impersonal, and essentially filler. Creative work should be specific, personal, and meaningful.