Living Like Kings

I’m walking and listening again. This has been a part of my daily routine for about fifteen years now, where I’ll throw on an audiobook or some kind of summary, or maybe one of

Michael Woudenberg

’s around-the-block essays, and then go for a walk.

Listening in order to learn or think (as opposed to reading) has some advantages. For starters, I can consume a whole lot more information if I’m able to do so while on the move. I can immerse myself in nature and lose myself in whatever I’m listening to while simultaneously stimulating my mind with the things I see.

There’s also the movement itself. Being ambulatory really helps new ideas sink in, and it’s really hard to walk around while you’re reading. And, there’s the idea that we humans have been exchanging information through language that we can hear for far, far longer than language we can see. There is something primal about listening.

One of the books I’m listening to talks about old monarchs, and how much relative power they had. Napoleon traveled with a silver-gilted toilet on his campaigns, but he was still out there campaigning all the time.

Louis XIV (the Sun King) was indoors most of the time at Versailles, which has become synonymous with opulence, luxury, and comfort. Courtiers dressed him every morning and undressed him before bed, and Versailles even had indoor plumbing—ooh la la! I mean, the water wasn’t safe to drink, so you wouldn’t want to just pour yourself a glass of water as I just did a few minutes ago. Louis also couldn’t turn on the hot water tap and jump in the shower, which I’m betting you can do almost any time you want.

As I’m hearing about how Napoleon or Louis XIV lived, I’m wondering if other people learning about these totalitarian rulers would want to swap places with them.

Now, I don’t mean switch places and then have to run a kingdom! That’s an entirely different type of conversation, for if you’re an absolute monarch, your life is never truly your own, and you might be a target of assassination or exile, something you’re unlikely to face as whoever you are.

Nope, I’m talking about straight up just living as one of those old-timey rulers lived. Genghis Khan? Julius Caesar? Those guys may have been carried everywhere they went, but they never got to experience air conditioning.

I’m thinking to myself now, walking and listening and thinking all at once, while I look at nature, I’m thinking: Mansa Musa, the richest person who ever lived, never had it so good. When he undertook the Haj with thousands of subjects, catering to his every whim, not a single one of them could bring him an audiobook to listen to while he watched the desert unfold. Sure, he was likely carried in a litter above the caravan while they walked, but if he had a cut on his finger, there was a chance he would die.

The good old days were anything but good, and there’s a zero percent chance I would want to live a life prior to this modern era, I think. I have it way, way too good.

Maybe I have it wrong, though! What do you think? Would you prefer to have everyone carry you through the desert on a litter, or would you prefer to binge-watch movies from your shower?