HISTORY MYSTERY SURVIVAL
Saturday July 28, 2018
This is a little sidebar on self-worth, civilization and mortality:
As we grope and crawl our way to an understanding of self, of our past and how we might create our future – the truth is that we don’t know our past.
We can’t because we weren’t there.
Mostly we know or knew our parents. And our grandparents. Beyond that we have little or no sense of where we came from or who ‘our people’ really were. Some people might have keepsakes, art, furniture or a story. They might have a family tree or family bible – some written history of births, deaths and marriages – but unless you have notorious or noble lineage that was documented in history books, we all have very little or no knowledge of our past.
Quit looking back. Look forward.
Imagine your hopes, dreams and accomplishments might never be known to your grandchildren or great-grandchildren – would that be of consequence to how you/we are in the world, to things we might do or try to accomplish? It matters …
I often wonder if that niggling issue, that urge to ‘write my book’ is about that very issue – that if I record what I’ve written some small boy or girl will one day read it and say ‘my great-great-grandad wrote this’. Of course, by then books might be obsolete – but surely words and language will survive.
Failing civilizations left a legacy – giving archaeologists and historians plenty of work. Many civilizations thrived but didn’t survive not just ancient Greece, ancient Rome or ancient Persia. Looking back, philosophy and language have survived – but for every language which survived, many more have vanished.
Reader feedback:
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
For all those businesses that slow down, there are flipside that pick in summer... HR often busy, medicine, hospitals... no one path..., JB, Edmonton, AB
Timely. After spending most of the week in a complete momentum standstill, running into walls ahead, turning left, turning right, different walls, same result. At one point, had to stop, breath, take a step or two backward (no walls there apparently), restart, chink away at the walls but with more purpose and patience, believing in a breakthrough… Breakthrough came, not a big one, but enough to establish some momentum, and it builds from there…, SR, Calgary, AB
