The Value of History in Relation to the Now

The value of history, both within the scope of humankind, as well as the history of existence that swallows up the fraction of the ‘Great All’ that us, as humans, have managed to occupy, is swallowed in the ocean of what is the overarching story of both space and time.

In the modern world of mankind, human history plays a vital role. Without recently passed lessons such as World War I and II, we would still be stuck in the arrogant mindset that allowed certain civilizations to horde the world into individual breadbaskets, while others gathered smaller breadbaskets, and still others looked on in envy as they demanded a share of imperial loot. With time, and slow, painfully gained progress, we have begun to learn the true value of human life for what it is… but even more recent lessons, such as the war in Iraq, and the present conflict in Afghanistan, suggest that humanity, as a whole, still has a long way to go before any final lesson relating to world peace between all living things is finally reached, let alone successfully learned.

Human history is but a spec in the overwhelming reality of the ‘Great All,’ and as such, it is even more important that we preserve it while we can. The future of humanity remains as uncertain as it has always been, and, despite the prospect of man reaching the stars to expand into eternity, it would seem that said possibility is not only a long way from being achieved, but on shaky ground as to its coming to fruition in the first place.

For all we know, humanity will be wiped off the face of the Earth before it reaches the stars, and, as such, will be wiped out of an indifferent existence that took no time, nor made any effort to record the small and insignificant role we played in the universe. For this very reason, it is vital that we continue to remember, as well as continue to learn, despite of, and because of the futility in doing so.

Life, it would seem, is simply one big time-lapse; both the individual’s life, as well as the collectives. All the labels, eras, years, and other sorts of arbitrary boundaries were not established to record past occurrences in our memories until we were able to look back in retrospect, and place them where we felt was necessary. In this way, it is similar to the fantasy of a ‘nation-state,’ in which we, as humans, have drawn imaginary boundaries as to differentiate between locations, and the kinds of people each location contains. The same goes for history.

Someone, somewhere, at some time, drew an imaginary line differentiating us from the age of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or the Ancient Egyptians, or the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo; and the further away we move from such past ages, the more concrete those imaginary lines become, just like the fantasy of a nation-state in the mind of a patriot.

Some see history from a single-minded perspective; that it exists only to teach us the lessons of our ancestors, as so we don’t end up repeating the same foolish mistakes, whether they were born of ignorance, arrogance, or just plain stupidity. In many cases, it was all three, and then some. But seeing it from such a perspective is not only self-mitigating, it is ignorant, as well as arrogant, and as such, it is not learning from our ancestors past mistakes so much as it is repeating them on more of a microcosmic scale. Some may argue that, as long as such a microcosmic scale exists only in the certain individual, then it is of no harm to the rest of us… yet they fail to realize that a collection of individuals born of ignorance and arrogance on such things so important to us as history, may well be on there way to becoming an ignorant and arrogant collective, and, as we all know from history’s past mistakes, an ignorant and arrogant collective exerts an influence over the rest of us whether it means to or not.

It is for this reason that history must be studied and approached from many different mind-sets at once. There is no such thing as a definite and untainted knowledge of anything, especially those relating to the past, which, by the fundamental laws of the universe, cannot exist in the present, nor be perfectly replicated to the point that a fact is undebatable, as all knowledge is born of observation, as well as individual perspective and opinion. There is no such thing as an omnipotent observer; only our attempt at creating such an observer, which is the collective memory of mankind that we have conveniently decided to call “History.”

History is our most valuable asset, especially now that we enter a completely unique and rapidly changing future in which anything and everything seems to be possible. Perhaps, one day, we will find a way to make our race immortal; if not in physical being, then in a collective, universal memory.

Perhaps, one day, the idea of ‘his’ story will alter to become Humanstory as we progress to the stars and beyond; to levels of consciousness never thought possible.

To true immortality.