throughout high school and undergrad, i couldn’t be bothered with history. it just never really clicked with me: why would you want to look at things that have already happened? that last statement is bordering on ironic considering that at one point i wanted to be a philosophy major.
as i got older i started to understand history more…not the dates and the places but the CONCEPT of history. it was simple: knowing what was done directs what you’re going to do. okay, i get that… as i got deeper and deeper though, i realized that history puts only a few names in bold print: washington, jefferson, adams… but they’re not the only ones making history. in fact, history; the creation of a nation, an economic entity, is all about the names that you never hear…names and faces that in some cases are never even recorded. what excited me the most was that history is all about stories. i get more perspective from a corporal in a muddy field who jotted notes in his journal than his commanding general in a dry tent on a hill.
it’s about the faceless, nameless masses. they’re the ones that make history real.
maybe one of these days i’ll work on my phd. for now, i’ll let a cartoon squirrel let me know how blind i can sometimes be.
talk about feeling good and bad at the same time. just goes to show how you never really know the type of impact your actions, or in this case the work i produce, will have.