Stand On The Shoulders of Giants

The only thing I knew about K-Town was that people from K-Town take great pride in being from K-Town, and betray an interest in ensuring that you recognize and acknowledge that they are from there. So I ventured into Kensington, Maryland this week to see if this small DC suburb lived up to the hype.

It is remarkable how little each individual sees of the world. I had never been to Kensington before, despite how close I live to it. The town is 15 miles away from where I grew up in Gaithersburg. There are more than one hundred other small towns in Maryland within driving distance that I have never interacted with, and half I likely have never heard of.

Expecting to be confronted by an Outsiders-styled gang of pretentious I’m-From-K-Town snobs, I was surprised to not interact with anybody, because there was almost nobody around. The town is “historic,” not because any grand or commendable events took place there, but because the architecture is old, quaint, and well-preserved. The whole town seemed to be a sleepy warm-colored brick courtyard. It’s like going back in time, but given my limited knowledge of architecture, I’m not sure to which time.

Going back in time is, in many ways, more possible than it’s ever been. Centuries of humans relied on pure memory to engage with the past, and then supplemented it with storytelling and imagination. Now, we have tremendous tools to help us preserve, evaluate, celebrate, and better understand the past. Videos and photos allow us to see a moment as the camera saw it. Recorded music perpetuates the beautiful voices of Sinatras and Armstrongs long after they’re dead. Our history books are mass-produced in identical copies, and if all our libraries burned down, they are saved digitally in millions of places. Great writing and poetry can make us feel (close to) the emotions that the poet felt. You can’t take your body back to fully relive a moment, but you can take your mind there ever so briefly.

I always inspect spontaneous appearances of Little Free Libraries, which usually take the form of a large, windowed birdhouse on a southern yellow 4×4 post. You know - those protected bookshelves on the street, where you can leave or take a book. They usually don’t have anything special; smutty and greasy middle-aged romance, battered textbooks, and pristine children’s books that the kids clearly weren’t interested in.

I look anyway. The way I see it, the library didn’t have to be here, I didn’t have to be here, and each individual book didn’t have to be here, but we’re all here now, so we might as well interact, get to know each other, and potentially we can become friends, or at least be of use to one another.

This particular library was good to me; I took home The Wit & Whimsy of Washington Irving.

Washington Irving is known to many as the first American Man of Letters. Whether you have heard of him or not, he has impacted your life, perhaps even tremendously.

Born in 1783, five years prior to the ratification of the Constitution, he was named after George Washington, the military hero, general, and future first president. Irving was the first American writer to have his stories take place in the United States, and first American to successfully take writing seriously as a full-time profession.

Irving created the nickname Gotham for New York City, a word meaning “Goat's Town.” His character Diedrich Knickerbocker is the namesake of the New York Knicks. It is alleged that pre-Columbus Europeans knew the world was round, and not flat, but Irving created the myth in a biography of Columbus. You have likely heard of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow, which was his brainchild, and if you’ve ever heard the phrase “almighty dollar,” that can be credited to him.

This is, most importantly, the man who created Santa Claus. In A History of New York, he dreams that “good St. Nicholas came riding over the tops of the trees, in that self-same wagon wherein he brings his yearly presents to children.” He brought a lovable amiable, family-friendly air to Christmas - a holiday banned from celebration in parts of the country for sparking excessive drunkenness and fighting.

Washington Irving is considered the father of the American short story, the first great American humorist, and a notable writer of great cultural impact. Of course, he was not always viewed this way.

42-years-old at the writing of this letter, Irving was not yet one of the standard authors that he is referring to in this quote. While popular and respected, his work received criticism for lacking substance, and some old-school Europeans felt his distinctly American voice was disrespecting the English language. Often his writings did not have a moral, and he did not seek to espouse politics onto his readers; he just wanted them to read and find pleasure and enjoyment.

This was regarded as viewing writing with an ungracious lack of seriousness. Edgar Allan Poe claimed “Irving is much overrated.” Barrett Wendell - who I’ve never heard of until today - stated “the man had no message.” Professional criticisms of his works were often true, but people loved his writings anyway - so who cares?

Irving’s popular stories are German and Dutch folklore and legends spun into new, unique American characters. He was described as a man from the New World who borrowed from the Old World. That bothers some people. Pay those people no mind. This is called standing on the shoulders of giants.

Isaac Newton, in a 1675 letter, downplayed his intellect: “if I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Basically he’s saying oh, you think I’m smart? Well, I’m not. They figured this all out before me, and I just kept the progress going.

Standing on the shoulders of giants means using thoughts, skills, and styles already developed to progress your own. If you read a book written long ago, or aim to write like Bob Dylan, or act like James Stewart, or dribble like Kyrie Irving, or play guitar like Chuck Berry, or rap like Biggie, or dance like Michael Jackson, you are standing on the shoulders of giants. You are emulating and honoring those who came before you, and continuing their influence. John Mayer plays like Eric Clapton who plays like B.B. King.

By studying European literature of the Old World, Washington Irving stood on the shoulders of giants, and therefore became a giant himself. Yet we are in a better position now than Irving was to become giants of our own. We can stand on the shoulders of the giants before him, the giants alongside him, and the giants after him. We have every preserved book written from the dawn of time, to our time. We can watch every movie ever produced and screened, and we have the entire catalogue of all of the world’s recorded music ever available at any given moment.

We have more giants than any previous generation, with the tallest shoulders to stand on. And what do we do? Watch thirst-trap TikToks and listen to Sexyy Red.

Standing on the shoulders of giants puts you above and ahead, by deepening and strengthening your intellectual foundation. I recommend engaging with canonical works and studying the greats, rather than simply focusing on what is popular at the moment. It may not be best for conversation, but it will certainly help you grow. I’m sure Twisters is good, but throw Citizen Kane in the rotation too.

You can go back in time and have a conversation with people from the past, by engaging with what they left behind. The way David McCullough puts it: “it is possible to be as provincial in time as it is in space. Because you were born in to this particular era doesn’t mean it has to be the limit of your experience. Move about in time, go places. Why restrict your circle of acquaintances to only those who occupy the same stage we call the present?”

If you ever dream of creating history, it is important to have an understanding of your predecessors and supporting actors. There is so much that we don’t know, that has already been discovered. We don’t have to figure it for ourselves, we just have to hear from the person who did.

To whoever put Thoreau and Irving in the little free library near GIGS in Kensington, you will never read this, but thanks. I’ll return the favor and pay it forward.