It’s not the repeating of history. 

Through out history. The written history, and never forget that history is written by the winners (quote is often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, or Alex Haley, depending on which version of history you read), and sometimes, though seldom, history, or a version of it, is written by the survivors. There are many examples of those who have held power over others and many, many words going on to explain the outcomes of that power. As I said on the very first entry of this blog, this is ‘my’ history, as I remember it. With all it’s misquotes and self-aware events. While worldwide there have been many significant, incidents, tragedies, achievements and truly awe-inspiring moments and events, it is what we ourselves experience, that truly shapes us.

How we perceive a moment in history, and integrate it into our memory. It is the sum of ‘I’. Not so much the ‘sum of us’ (‘Us’ being used here as a collective of the human species in general). For there are seldom matters that affect everyone, never the same, but often impact on the ‘I’ differently to others. How often have we heard someone reacting, to our reaction to a moment, with a totally opposite reaction. Phrases such as, “Pull yourself together. It’s only a…. (substitute their reaction here)”. I recall one of the more internationally famous moments, the death of Lady Diana in a car crash. Unfortunately for me, I was not grief stricken, nor shocked (this may have had something to do with my line of work). Others were in tears. As I said to many at the time, “More than two hundred people died in car crashes in the world that same day. Yet they did not receive the world-wide attention. They were not deemed ‘news-worthy’. But I am sure the impact on those families associated with the incidents found it historically significant to them.

The passing of time historically creates many ‘myths’ and false memories. I believe the media play an enormous part in this today. I recently watch a movie where the protagonist returned to 40 years in the past. While I had many laughs at the way they ‘played’ with history, I was very aware that many of the younger people had no idea what had gone on just forty years before. They may be able to relate the latest song title, artist, some can even talk about recent authors (in the popular fiction only) but ask them what happened after the Great war (WWI) and they are unaware of such things as the ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic (epidemic being affect locally, Pandemic meaning larger area, in this case it was global) that actually killed more people than died during the war (see this for brief outline http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/). In the same way they have the opportunity to access an incredible amount of information today, they are losing the general knowledge that most of us took for granted (we used to have to read books mind you).

(will definitely have to continue this tomorrow)