Learn about history as it will help you understand the developing future. History can be seen in many different ways. How one interprets the past, through their own bias, will dictate the future they will see.
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Tag: History
Forget History And Move On
We don’t need to know how you got here. We do need to decide where to go from here.
Sometimes people will spend two hours explaining how they got into a mess or a situation. Usually, what would be more helpful is spending that two hours devising a plan to move forward.
Focus on building a brilliant future. Then get on with it.
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Undoing History
The desire to undo things done must be as old as civilisation itself. People say and do things they wish they could take back. Undoing history would be lovely in some respects. However, there is no giant red rewind button to facilitate this.
Wouldn’t it be nice if such and such had happened or hadn’t happened. The musings of those not wanting to accept the brutal facts of reality. Things are as they are today. They are like this precisely because billions of people did trillions of things and they can’t all be undone.
By constantly living in the hope of the past being different, we can drive ourself to madness.
It may give us some comfort to hope that we will be young again. Or even that wars will not have been fought and past transgressions never occurred. Spending time on trying to right the past uses up energy we could use to improve the present and the future.
Sure it would be better if certain things were a certain way today. Anyone whose family has had a difficult past would probably agree. However, it has happened a certain way and we must make the best of it now.
Rewriting history might make you feel better about the story but the results are in.
Undoing history is still not possible. Best to focus on what is.
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Recorded History Obsession
There is something wonderful about keepsakes from our past. Equally it is nice to keep tapes and videos. Although a recorded history obsession seems to be getting a foothold in modern culture.
I suppose it started with chiselling into some clay tablets. Then things moved to the printing press and recorded music. That was a nice time. Not too many newspapers, books, or musicians traipsed about. So not much was recorded.
Then we moved to making films. And then tv shows. Some started live. Then some shows did pre-recordings.
After that came VHS, Mixed tapes, CD’s, DVD’s, digital photography, books, ebooks, audio books, box sets, etc. Things were further complicated by CCTV, social media and email. Everything we did was being recorded. Even our ring doorbell footage needed to be stored in the cloud.
I have so many photo and video clips, that I am not sure I would ever look at them all again. It would take days if not weeks. We are so awfully busy capturing moments of our life, that we lose our life reliving those moments.
Memories are wonderful. But do we need to remember everything via recordings? Will we ever have enough time to watch it all? Or only when we are very old and the information no longer useful.
This recorded history obsession may need to slow down to preserve mental health.
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Life Before Electricity
What was that like? Imagine how many things in your life would be quite different right now. It’s staggering. Imagine life before electricity.
So you would not be able to use your lights at your house. There would be no television, radio or mobile phones. Yes, it is starting to look a little bleak.
You wouldn’t have a battery in your car. And there would be no batteries in your game. Street lamps would not exist. Nor would integrated fire alarms. Driving on unfamiliar roads would require a physical paper map. No Tom Tom would be there to help you.
Electric cars would not be a thing. They wouldn’t run. Maybe a car made with a water based power source would exist. So many endless possibilities.
Could you live in a time without electricity? What would you miss the most? What would you miss the least?
Electricity is so fun to have around. It’s the life of a party. It would be shocking without it.
Spend one day without using electricity and see how you get on. You might realise how truly valuable this commodity is. Sometimes we only come to this conclusion after we’ve tried the hardship exercise.
It’s hard to imagine life before electricity.
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