If there is one thing we’ve learned about Taylor Swift fans, it’s that they are expert internet sleuths. They can track planes in ways that would make even the most seasoned of college football fans proud. And if you have an old tweet of interest to them, the Swifties will find it.
Travis Kelce’s Twitter/X timeline got that treatment this week, and one strikingly poetic tweet from Kelce in 2012 seemed to catch the attention of Taylor Swift fans — in a good way.
Apparently, Kelce was writing his own Taylor Swift lyrics in 2012 and didn’t even realize it. That, or he was just taking a philosophy class at the University of Cincinnati.
The capacity to live in the past by memory can also emancipate the individual from the tyranny of the present.
— Travis Kelce (@tkelce) September 4, 2012
Amazing.
Now, there was initial belief (and surprise) that Kelce came up with this sentence on his own. But a quick search would show that he was quoting American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr verbatim. Niebuhr wrote in his 1949 book Faith and History, via Skidmore College:
The capacity to live in the past by memory also emancipates the individual from the tyranny of the present. He can choose, if he wants, to reverse a present trend of history in favor of some previous trend.
So while the Kansas City Chiefs tight end isn’t the next great philosopher of our time, the old tweet still inspired plenty of jokes.