Bit of a different flavour to this weeks episode. I hope you enjoy it.
Progress.
When we think about progress we normally think about technological progress, perhaps in the medical space or electric cars. However I’ve recently returned from a family holiday in Italy, and it’s made me reflect on the progress of humans.
Galileo ended his life in prison because he dared to suggest that everything didn’t revolve around the earth, and in fact the earth circled around the sun. Dante, Italy’s Shakespeare as best I can tell, spent most of the latter part of his life in exile because he found himself on the wrong side of the local politics. In San Gimignano we went to a torture museum, largely a bit of tourist entertainment, but it highlighted some of the horrible things that humans have done to one another over time. Women getting out of line, they were witches. Homosexuality, stretch them out upside down and saw them in half. The cruelty with which people in past ages were dealt if they dared to challenge authority is absolutely outstanding.
In this podcast, Financial Autonomy, I lean most heavily on the financial component, that’s my area of expertise, and likely why you’re listening. But it is interesting to reflect on the autonomy part a little and recognise that for a lot of human history, people had very little autonomy at all. They did what they were told, didn’t question, and for those with the inclination to do some thinking, they needed to be very careful about who they shared those thoughts with.
That today we have the opportunity to choose how we want to live our lives, the religions that we wish to follow, our family arrangements, our occupations, they just weren’t options for the bulk of human history. And so whilst it is fantastic to marvel at our technological progress, things like mobile phones, microwave ovens, and the GPS in our car, it’s worth reflecting on our human progress too. You’ve no doubt heard someone say that things were better back in my day, or I wish we could go back and live in that simpler time. It’s absolute crap, total fantasy. We’re so fortunate to live in the times that we do, at least in the western world. That we have the opportunity to pursue Financial Autonomy is a privilege. One that I’m glad to be reminded of.
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