“Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives, and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.” Voltaire.

Two years ago, I started a draft story that asked..."What defines a species".

Humans inherently want to put order on things, and even want to make a lot of decisions about whether there is diversity between individuals...so they try to bend things needlessly into different - or into their own way of thinking.

This quote by the French Enlightenment writer and philosopher, captures the idea that the era in which we are born profoundly shapes our thoughts, values, and perceptions.

“Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives, and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.”

Voltaire

He observed that while most people are naturally influenced by the intellectual, social, and cultural climate of their time, only a few manage to step beyond those prevailing ideas and challenge the norms of their 'age'.

Context and meaning
Voltaire reflects a belief in the strong influence of historical context on individual thinking. The “age” refers to the prevailing ideas, beliefs, and societal structures of particular time periods. Most people accept these as natural or inevitable, but he highlighted the rarity of those who can critically examine and challenge them.

Only a few question the assumptions of their age and think independently. This reflects lifelong commitment to challenging prejudice, superstition, and intolerance in behaviors - through reason and critical thought.

................................................

Rabindranath Tagore says...

"Do Not Confine Your Children to Your Own Learning, for They Were Born in Another Time".

So too, do I believe that we should not judge other people for their way of going about doing what their path in life compels them to do. As long as they are not infringing on our rights, or directly hurting other people with their actions - then everyone is free to pursue whatever makes them happy and content.

Knowledge accumulates, and the education of each generation must include the latest information and capabilities.

So don’t limit anyone to your own learning, for they exist in their own time and space.

By much falling does a child learn to walk...learn and grow.

From the rose proceeds a thorn, from the thorn a rose.

Let the thorn and the rose become what they were meant to become.

What is said out of doors is what we have learned indoors. Don't expose your limited knowledge of this vast universe by letting loose your ignorant lips. Remember...

This world is an ante-chamber to the next and we must be careful of how we conduct ourselves...lest we find ourselves on a never ending staircase - trapped in the abyss of criticism and despair, not knowing if we are coming or going. You bog yourself down in the mire by staying down there to judge and criticise...In order for you to rise, you must allow, or even assist others to rise in their own way.

Why it’s relevant to “living in one's own time”

• In each generation’s context — the values, technologies, and challenges of our day — influences how we see the world...how we interpret the world.

• It reminds us that while we are shaped by our time, it’s possible to step back and examine its limits.

• It’s a call to think critically about the norms and beliefs of our era, rather than accepting them unquestioningly.

Like Johnny Depp...we may say...“I always felt like I was meant to have been born in another era, another time.”

I know that I do.

There is this sense that sometimes our talents or perspectives feel misaligned with the moment we were born in.

But, being “born in your own time” is both a gift and a challenge — shaped by the world around you, but with the potential to transcend it.

In giving chances to new ideas...we give rise to new possibilities.

We are all born with a need to be accepted, loved and appreciated...and we never outgrow it.

We Are Born in One Day, Embracing Life's Transient Nature

We are born...Not gradually... in the slow accumulation of years and calendars, but in a single bright instant when breath first enters the gospel of our infantile bones and declares us citizens of time.

The clocks of time then begin their patient feast.

Morning lifts us in hands of milk and wonder. Afternoon teaches us the calendars of loss. Evening gathers quietly at the edges of our laughter, etching shadows into the fabric of our soul.

We must not spend our lives mistaking permanence for home.

We build monuments from promises, carve our names into stone, seal our photographs in frames, yet every treasure is already learning the dialect of departure.

The rose folds itself back into earth. The river forgets the ebb and flow of every wave. Even stars, those ancient witnesses, burn through their gold and vanish into the dark that carried them.

And still we love.

We love through knowing that hands will someday loosen, that voices will become echoes, that every embrace contains a farewell hidden deep within its heart.

Perhaps this is the secret.

That life is not diminished by its briefness, but illuminated by it.

A candle glows fiercely because it cannot endure forever. Autumn leaves become sacred because they are already falling. A human soul becomes radiant because it walks beneath the fragile law of endings.

We are born in one day, and in another day we will depart.

Between those two doors lies an astonishing miracle:

The chance to marvel at rain, to offer kindness, to stand beneath a moonlit sky and wonder why beauty hurts, to become, for a little while, a conscious spark drifting through the infinite night.

So let us not cling to the passing world as though it owes us permanence.

Let us hold it gently.

The flower. The friend. The dream. The heartbreak. The fleeting sun crossing an ordinary room.

For all things are transient, and because they are transient, all things are precious.

We are born in one day.

The rest is a brief, shining conversation between dust and starlight, a whisper carried through eternity, an open hand learning, at last, how beautiful it is to let go.