When I seek advice–be it spiritual, occupational, emotional, or social–I usually draw inspiration from the greats. I ponder what do the world's many schools of thought say about this dilemma and how can that help me make a decision about it. What would a Buddhist say about this, what would a Stoic or a Nietzschean say about this, what would a Christian say about this? Other times I may ask what my favorite actors, engineers, psychologists, or writers say about this?
I have done this for most of my life and I must admit that it has done me quite well. These philosophies and influencers have given me a torch to hold as I try to navigate the dark and twisted tunnels of life. Christianity gave me the hope I needed when navigating adolescence, Buddhism gave me the peace I needed to get through many trying times, and influential speakers helped me gain confidence in my decisions for work, life, and habits. But as I've gotten older I have realized that there is a shred of truth in every story and these only represent a fraction of a percent of the stories from our collective epic.
When students learn about the history of the 2010's and 2020's, they will likely not read about you or me, our walks to the grocery store, our sunsets watched or our tears shed. No, they will read about CEOs of tech companies, wars started without cause, and oligarch islands. We will probably be included in the margins as the people or affected ones in many of these stories, but we will not be named, our stories will not be told in their infinite varieties, our philosophies will be collapsed to a singular. History is written by the victors, so the volition of the victors becomes the volition of the masses.
Who are the kinds of people that tend to be victors? This is often a self selecting group of people. In order to obtain influence, you usually need to first desire influence, and second be able to manifest it. The former signals ambition and at worst narcissism, and the latter signals grit and at worst psychopathy. This obviously isn't always the case, in some instances influence is thrust upon someone rather than them having grabbed it out of their own drive and consistency, but in the normal case, these are necessary to become a powerful individual. For this reason, narcissists and psychopaths are overrepresented in positions of high power because they have the largest drive and are willing to be the most conniving to get there.
This is all the more reason to be cautious with popular schools or thought and even moreso with influential leaders: they are usually riddled with survivorship bias which may mislead you and propagandistic ideas designed to control you. For example, many famous founders will claim that all it takes is hard work and passion to lead one of the most powerful companies in the world (more powerful than many countries) which entirely ignores their luck and maybe questionable deicisions that led to their success. But this is not the point of why I am writing this, as this is already a commonly touched upon trope. Also, I don't think it's a fair or productive take for me to defend that every popular ideology is wrong simply because they aren't the full truth. I do believe there is a lot of truth to be found in every story; however, what I find even more interesting is the truth to behold in stories untold.
How did a member of Alexander the Great's army think about his life? How did a serf working fields in the 14th century feel? What was is like to be a a loyalist in 18th century America? These aren't the stories that we are typically told. For some reason, whether it be deliberate ommission or just omission by circumstance, these stories aren't at the table, but maybe they should be. Perhaps not everyone was devoted to developing a life philosophy as the influential figures we often talk about today, still I believe there is truth in every person's perspective, and we can't hope to understand ourselves and each other if we only listen to the loudest voices.
There are many reasons that wisdom might be quiet. Systematic erasure can happen when populations are killed off through war and kept out of the history books or when marginalized groups don't have access to educational or structural resources to write and share their stories. It can also happen if the idea itself doesn't want to be heard, or at the least doesn't actively seek it out.
Much of my life I have asked myself the question "How can I have the biggest impact on the world in my life." Obviously there was an implicit "positive" before the impact, but I still find pondering "who am I to define what positive means." I think it would be hard to find a many powerful people in history who would claim they are actively causing a net negative impact. And most of the time impact is not binary, the good invariably comes with the bad. These days I find myself asking the seemingly antithetical question "How can I have the smallest possible impact on the world." It seems like maybe a counterproductive stance, but what if more people thought this way? Maybe we would live in a more sustainable and peaceful world.
Obviously, I'm not the first person to ever have this thought. This is quite a common thought I would wager. But there is a reason we don't hear about it that often in the popular discourse: because it doesn't need to be heard. A cell that seeks to minimize division will never become cancerous, but it will also never cure cancers that arise elsewhere in the body. Native Americans are among those who shared this perspective of minimizing our impact on the world. Most Native philosophies see the world's resources as shared gifts for which we owe gratitude and respect (eg. the "honorable harvest" is a prominent idea in Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass). But there is an unfortunate reality to why Native Americans and their culture were almost entirely wiped out by western settlers, because having a small impact loses against someone who wants to have a large impact. This doesn't mean the Native ideals were bad, in fact maybe it means they were great, but what it does mean is that these ideas will not emerge naturally in the mainstream.
That said, it is even possible to find quiet wisdom from within the loudest sources. In many ways, the modern manifestations of dominant schools of thought can often diverge from their original intentions. Take the Christian church for example. Historically, the church has enabled countless wars and centuries of colonization. Even to this day, it is deeply entrenched in American politics, but look at what Jesus himself says when the Devil tempts him with power.
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
Jesus was by no means silent–he gave his fair share of famous sermons–but he also never twisted people's arms to get them to believe. He taught the power of love and forgiveness, not wars and coersion; ironically, christianity probably would not be as prominent as it is if the church had actually lived Christ's teachings. So it is possible to find quiet wisdom in the bible (if you maybe look past the violence of the earlier half), or even at a local church. Some of the most profound teachings I've ever heard came from a small church in Montauk on Easter Sunday last year.
Buddhism has a bit of a better track record, in part because it is more explicitly pacifist and doesn't have a true centralized authority in the same was that the Catholic Papacy has consolidated political power. Even then, it has seen some involvement in politics and wars, and it has also seen its teachings shift overtime in some schools to become more focussed on deities and less focussed on the individual. But despite Buddhism being a prominent world religion, most of its teachings are very quiet. If anything, the core tenets of Buddhism might extinguish ambition and control-seeking behavior. So despite Buddhism being a major world religion, it has plenty of quiet wisdom to offer, especially because it has such a distributed following with diverse practices and beliefs. It is a rare case where a quiet idea whispered among enough travelling merchants over millenia led to a large chorus chanting together.
But Buddhism is a rare case, especially in the west where we see the same stories play out again and again. We always end up in this kind of equilibrium state of a small ruling class controlling everything. Revolutions will topple the ruling class only to become them in a couple centuries. Loud ideas will always echo the longest. The traditional voices of success in our society will only tell you how to mimic their success. So if we want to achieve a different outcome, we need to listen elsewhere.
Part of the reason we don't tell everyone's story that I haven't touched on is that our history books still need to fit within a single textbook (at least the abridged versions). We can't tell every possible person's story, so even as we try to learn about the groups left out of commonly-told stories of Earth, we must remember that every one person's story is unique–as unique as those of the great heroes we talk about all the time. This is all the more reason to lean on our local circles and create our own understandings of culture and history. Sure, 48 Laws of Power might help me become a ferocious threat to my company's and country's power hierarchies, but maybe my grandfather knows better about how to be a good person. Having a balanced and nuanced understanding of our world takes empathy and intent.
It is important to draw wisdom from different places. If you take it from only one place it become rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements, the other nations, will help you become whole.
There is truth in everyone's story, so if understanding is what we seek, we ought to listen more. I believe this includes both the loudest ideas and the softest ones: there is a place for both in a nuanced appreciation of our world. I already hear the loudest ideas a disproportionate amount, so more than anything, this post is a reminder to myself to seek out the knowledge that whispers, for it may not otherwise reveal itself to me. So go out, explore, and most of all listen.