In 1675, Sir Isaac Newton wrote a letter to his friend, Robert Hooke.
Hidden in that letter was a sentence that helps explain why Newton saw farther into the mysteries of the universe than almost any man who lived until then:
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
What a profound admission.
Newton understood that great discovery is rarely born in isolation. He studied the work of other brilliant minds. He absorbed it. He connected it. Then he built upon it.
That is how human wisdom advances.
In truth, there is no such thing as a completely original philosophy or religion. Civilization itself is syncretic. One layer rests upon another across centuries and millennia.
The New Testament was built upon the Old Testament.
The Old Testament itself drew from older Babylonian and Egyptian wisdom traditions.
Human understanding grows the same way a cathedral rises: stone upon stone, generation upon generation.
There is an old anecdote we love because it illustrates this truth beautifully.
Once there was a humble priest. He was not highly educated, nor especially sophisticated, but he lived such a virtuous life that during the Divine Liturgy he was able to see angels.
One day, a bishop visited his church and noticed the priest was performing part of the service incorrectly.
The bishop corrected him carefully and instructed him in the proper way.
But after the bishop departed, the priest returned to his old habits.
Then, during the Liturgy, one of the angels spoke to him:
“The bishop was right. You should do as you were instructed.”
The priest became furious and raised his voice to the angel:
“You have stood beside me for years,” he said. “You saw me making these mistakes all this time. Why did you never correct me?”
And the angel replied:
“Because God established that human beings are meant to guide one another.”
Then the angel disappeared.
What a magnificent lesson.
Even celestial beings honored the principle that wisdom is transmitted through others.
Which brings us back to Newton.
“Standing on the shoulders of giants” is not merely a poetic phrase. It is one of the great principles of growth.
Allow yourself to study the great minds who walked this earth before you.
Allow yourself to be coached.
To be mentored.
To learn from those who have traveled farther down the road.
Do not insist on discovering everything alone.
Because when you learn from giants, you inherit decades, sometimes centuries, of hard-won wisdom in a fraction of the time.
And then, like Newton, you begin to see farther across space and time… simply because you chose to stand on the shoulders of giants. 
There are no mistakes in the universe,
Monica and Stefan
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