Sebastian Purcell

"The Aztecs were a philosophical people who held that the top goal in human life is not happiness but the pursuit of what they called 'neltiliztli': a life in truth. Our world, they held, is a 'slippery' one - a place where it is easy to make mistakes and be unwell. A true life avoids slipping by pursuing a communitarian solution, beginning with the formation of relationships and growing deep roots and later moving inward to still the mind. This outside-in...

A philosophy grounded not in a transcendent divinity, afterlife, or individualism, but in a rooted communal life -- Amazon.com. The Aztecs of central Mexico had a rich philosophical tradition, passed down orally for centuries in the native Nahuatl language and recorded in Latin script by Spanish clergymen. One of the earliest transcripts was the Huehuetlatolli, or Discourses of the Elders, compiled by Friar Andrés de Olmos circa 1535. It consisted...