We Are Who They Were - a 'guest' post :)

I had another blog, long ago. Like other neglected blogs, it has now been lost in the murky waters of unnoticed cyberspace. I wrote this post on that blog about two years ago. I still remember writing it, while I was working at the stadium, where I hardly ever did anything but transfer the occasional phone call and write papers for my homework.

In a swirl of history and literature classes that semester, a spark hit my mind and ignited: the reality of the continuity of human history, the multitude of events and ideas that shaped the past, and now shape us. The idea that we can't escape history, even when we're ignorant about it. The past isn't something that's gone; we all carry bits of it. I'm not just talking about simple traditions or stuff we blindly do because that's how it's done. I mean thousands of years of time and people, all doing things and having ideas, the way we think, how we view reality itself. History is not all in the past.

Nobody ever commented on the original post, which couldn't possibly mean it was uninteresting to everyone but me. The only possible explanation is that nobody saw it, or they couldn't comprehend it due to my poor capitalization skills.  So I've gone to the trouble of capitalizing the proper words (back in the day, I didn't do that) and have revised it VERY slightly.

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Have you ever wondered why we do the things we do? Either you and me individually, or maybe our entire culture? Why are we like this? Can we - individually or as a whole culture - develop independently of and differently than those who have lived before us?

I've come to be convinced that the understanding of current times, at least in a very large way, lies in the past. The study of history illuminates today with a clarity and wonder that cannot be otherwise manufactured. The more history I learn, the more I understand about today, my culture, myself. I make no exaggerations. Then was another time, another place, another culture. But we wouldn't be who we are without the ideas, expectations and behaviors set in place by those very long ago. We are who they were.