Why History?

Why History? This is something I am asked all the time. Why couldn't I have been interested in something more practical? Something more modern? More stream-lined to a particular career? This is for all you who love history, those that share the passion for the past. This is for all of you who hate history, who would rather wait in peak hour traffic or watch paint dry, than read about the Titanic or Henry VIII's Field of Cloth of Gold, or Viking raids.

This piece of writing is pretty much me rambling about why I looooveeeeee studying, learning, immersing myself in history of pretty much any era. It isn't a scholarly deconstruction on history or the problems that occur with studying it. Anyways, so here we go. The only way I could simply describe the feeling is probably the same as when a painter gets new paintbrushes or a gym junkie finds a new protein powder; it's exciting. Yet I'd hope that history has a more meaningful impact on me than the protein powder or paintbrushes have for others.

It is fascinating collecting knowledge of the lives of people, how they interacted, lived, thought, acted and rebelled. History is a sort of intrigue and curiosity, the whys?, the hows? when? where? We investigate it, as Sherlock and Watson sleuth around a crime scene.  It is all about questions, and if we're lucky, sometimes they are answered. How were the pyramids built? Why did women wear corsets? What does the Great Wall of China keep out?

I could care less for dates, statistics and policies; History is not made up of numbers but of people, rebels, revolutionaries, day dreamers and night thinkers, sufferers, hardships and hope. The French Revolution was not important because it began in 1789, but because of the ideas it fought for, the legacy it left, that sketched a mark throughout Europe. Just as Leonardo Da Vinci's great inventions of the ball bearing and flying machine, the beauty of his paintings transcended his time.

                (The Vitruvian Man) 

The past seems to sit in a milky cloud, that we peer through often seeing the golden memories, the quirky abstracts that transform into novelties. Like how in the Georgian period noble women and men wore white face powders as make-up that were lead based some including vinegar and horse manure. Wigs were also popular because of the fear of lice. The next image is an eccentric wig belonging to Marie Antoinette.

History evokes emotion, for myself, I feel a patchwork quilt of emotions ranging from heart-wrenching sadness, to wild anger, to curiosity and happiness. The only fatal tragedy is that we can't change it...



                        "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." (L.P. Hartley)


History does boast a dark side. A side that ignores wrongs done, trauma that slices through generations and horrors across all continents that still remain unknown because of an unwillingness to accept the mistakes and abuses of our ancestors. Hindsight is such a luxury for us, we know what  has happened in the past, the overall picture of a narcissistic ruler that systematically destroys or the dominating coloniser that destroys the peace of first peoples. We remove emotion and raw tragedy with academic examination, scholarly intrigue and judgement-- some don't care for the people.  History is such a powerful force because us in the present are handed with hindsight to stop what has previously happened. Yet many people abuse it, will mimic the mistakes, galvanise the failures and wrong doings of the leaders to roll them over into our time. It takes courage to combat this. The courage of the Suffragette Movement of the 19th and 20th centuries and the rebels of the Easter Uprising of 1916.

It makes you grateful for how far we've come, for example in the Western world the advancement of women and Indigenous rights, but even though we're thankful for the progress, it makes some people complacent, they stop continuing this progression that has clearly not finished. History has walked with us thus far, yet we have many more journeys to go.

History will always be relevant and important. We will always be cherry picking into the past for reasons to explain the present and change the future. We will always try to chase back with nostalgia for the 'good ol' days'. And I don't think I'll ever stop chasing. I've always been told I was born in the wrong era, and I intend to keep exploring that world as closely as possible...

Stay curious...

Hello everyone, now I know we have all aged since my last post, but hopefully this will make up for the new found wrinkles and grey streaks in our hair. As you may remember or are yet to read, my last post was about the tingles and stirrings of happiness and excitement that adventure can brew. This week we will take a step back. Let's retreat under our blanket cubbyhouses and fairy lights and delve into the realms of curiosity and inner adventure. Within your clouds of blankets I hope you can enjoy these snippets of adventure, imagination and curiosity to be flown away to someplace different.

Curiosity involves a little sprinkle of risk taking. To be curious is to reach out and roll around in something that is unfamiliar. To fall in love with being alive, not through square screens with the swipes of apps but in what inspires, enraptures, challenges and makes us curiouser and curioser.

Now, I confess that I'm not the one for major risk taking. I'm yet to jump out of a plane or spring from a cliff, but risks can start with trying things that are fresh, new, outside your personal comfortable bubble. Try a piece of that spicy food (although it might singe your tongue), eat those marinated insects and snails or even something as simple as watching a film with subtitles. By all means though, go jump out of a plane if you want to... let me know how it goes. 

Moving on, remember our surroundings can provide us with pots and pans full of curious imaginings;

You curve and coil, then stretch and dive as if a wave. You have a mind of your own, making your own choices, at points feeling serene, bobbing cheerfully yet you also go through tough times in a violent dance with the cliff. But the sea salt always sits on your lips and crystallises in your hair. 

You are an autumn leaf that floats away giggling like a carefree toddler with twirls and curls choreographed by the breeze. Moving left and right, up and down, wondering about your surroundings until you find somewhere comfortable to land. Until the next breath moves you, you rest until next time.

If the brown boots of your travels would speak, the tales and fables they possess would allow you to delve back into these adventures. Where some moments have been swallowed into the gapping mouth of forgetfulness. Imagine the stories your shoes would hold?

You are the 10 cent coin that has found a place suffocated between receipts and business cards.  Your current master fails to spend you on tipping a waitress or to a homeless person. Your previous masters have been a florist, a priest, a truck driver and a surf instructor, to name a few. Who will you be passed onto next?

You are this girl, carefully amazed by the cloudy white of a pearl. How could something so pure be trapped beneath the spikes of a shell and the force of the ocean?

Your days that are constant can sometimes be reassuring but is it really something that you want to continue? Sitting at work, at a desk, with the vibrating twangs of phone calls? The continual worries about washing, ironing, the gossip of about the unnecessaries, for we a simply stardust, with absolutely no need for rudeness and unkindness. Now may these be gone and take notice of the weird and random things throughout your day, in particular the little things. I was sitting on the train that shakes like ice in a cocktail shaker and noticed that my hands are coated in porcelain triangles wedged together.

Find through the noise, the embers that whisper your purpose, waiting to be enflamed into a bonfire!

Now I have a plan, for you who want to build your inner crusade for curiosity. Yet the beauty of this inward expedition is that it can begin with the calmness of you, sometimes as simply as staying in your home. Keep asking yourself the whats? whys? hows? and wheres? Also, start with these steps that will let your brain take three deep breaths, start with these and you will enjoy what is simple that is enchanted with tranquility. Start with these and your sense of curiosity will flower. 

* Read at least 20mins every day (or every second day). It's the only way to trek abroad, meet new people, see new cultures and worlds for almost under $20.

* Switch off all electronics for 1-2days.

*Go outside and savour some sunlight before the artificial glare of indoors is all we can get at work and school.

* Even indulge in the splendour of our own private space. Our own castles and four poster mahogany beds without the knocks of annoyance and rudeness.

*Be grateful and empathise with others. Not talking about yourself all the time can unlock something as magical and simple as kindness.

* Don't compare yourself to others. As the wise philosopher Dr Seuss penned "Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is you-er than you. Shout aloud, I am glad to be what I am. Thank goodness I'm not a ham, or a clam, or a dusty old jar of gooseberry jam. I am what I am, what a great thing to be. If I say so myself, happy everyday to me!".

* Write a handwritten letter to someone who you care about, lace it with love, sprinkle some humour and make people smile with words.

* Read, watch, write and do something you love in a small or big way every day. Go for a walk to your favourite place, take up photography, go see a movie or live performances. Escape from the superglue of monotony.

Be curious; this world is a puzzling place. It is curiosity that allows us to piece it together.