The obvious phrases that come to mind when comparing the medieval man, caveman, or palace king to us include: “we have phones, they didn’t,” “we have advanced technology, they didn’t,” “we can travel by air, they couldn’t.” All these ideas, though being partly true, reflect on the past as being uncultivated and backward, but that is remotely accurate. Neither were the people of yore underdeveloped nor did their lives lack much. The following reading may open your eyes to a new perspective.

Were they undeveloped? In my opinion, no. What mankind has fully accomplished in various sectors was first nascent somewhere in the past, by somevarying degree. Today’s glory is the god of internet: within milliseconds of typing, I can search how to make a pizza, order a dress on Amazon, pay my monthly bills, chat with a dear friend overseas, watch a movie or share this article.

This singular opportunity to learn whatever the heart desired did take time back then, but it was more personal, diligently sought and profoundly precious once obtained. For instance, merchants sought traders on the silk route, instead of a self-help GPS, thus promoting cross-cultural interactions. The troubled in Greece sought oracles and the sub-Saharan Africans sought Sufi mystics, not WebMd. Scholars sought Galileo and Chanakya, not Wikipedia. Christopher Columbus sought India, not an Indian restaurant. With reconsideration, it feels as though these guys had a more unique, empowering experience than we do these days.

Has the fast speed of receiving data killed our emotion of rejoicing in the information obtained? Because we do not travel miles to ask a question or obtain an answer, have we lost the earnestness to cherish the information we get? I mean, I don’t even remember my last Google search, for I use it incessantly and almost causelessly. Though the non-21st century people lacked the celerity of present times, they definitely embodied a stronger passion to inquire and acquire what we barely care about now.

“Our generation is the best!” many will exclaim, and those that follow them after three decades have the same thing to say about theirs. We think what we use today nobody in the past has been privileged with, but how untrue is that?

What needs to be done today was also accomplished ages ago, albeit slowly, but it was accomplished. Goods were transported on animal backs, but the wheel and cart followed as the ‘new thing,’ just like today a car is followed by something more ingenious within cars i.e. the Tesla model.

The point here is that whether it's a car or cart, an animal or a wheel, the goods, ladies and gentleman, were transported. And this applies to almost every mundane aspect of human civilization in general: food, trade, politics, military etc.

So what about galaxies and air travel? Have you forgotten Copernicus? Da Vinci? Or the meditative Sadhus of India as being masters of astral travel? As modern humans, we haven’t done anything extraordinary that the people in the past (at least some of them) did not already do; we have simply learned to do it faster and more conveniently.

In the past, people have reached out to others around the globe (sometimes neither very successfully nor peacefully), but how much has that even changed today? Ask yourself about encounters of Spaniards with the Mayans, the Nazis with the Soviet, or even the American invasion of Iraq and Vietnam.

Today we have deadlier ammunition to terminate countries. Though not possessing nuclear weapons, early man had fire and cannons which could decidedly end major cities and thereby terminate an entire civilization at a glance – the effect is the same today or yesterday! What has changed is the way of implementation and the promptness of it.

I don't intend to exalt the yester-years and disdain the present times, my endeavor is simply to show how much we underestimate our past and the people in it all the time. I attempt only to respectfully debunk the common notions about the past as being “uncivilized and primitive."

Do you not think that we may well be the backward ones for we have only learned to do what they already did a little faster and better? Is that our only breakthrough? So today, take a step back from laughing at your grandpa's old hearing aid or your teacher's typewriter.

Take a minute and imagine the latest iPhone/ Samsung that you love today becoming the laughing stock a hundred years later for its "primitiveness." Only you will remember that it was not primitive and it enabled you to carry out all the functions suited to your lifestyle at the time.You may then wonder as I do, that nothing has changed from the past, and yet, everything has.