Thoughts, and such

“The thing that most haunted me that day, however...was the fact that these things had - apparently - actually occurred...For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you've seen that truth - really seen it - you can't look away.”

― Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

The thing with history is that it never fails to amaze me; in both good and bad ways. I look at the great parts of history where people were working together to make or do something great, like the word’s fair, fair trade, international women’s day, or good clean competitiveness like the Olympics.

Then I look at the not so great parts where hatred for other peoples, and disasters triumph, like in the never-ending wars, the great depression, and government oppression.

I love history and feel like I can truly appreciate the past. Yet there are some things that I don’t think can be appreciated, like hunger, hate, and hypocrisy. It is so easy sometimes to just forget about the truly terrible times in history, or sugarcoat the events that are too horrific to really think about what actually happened, that we don’t realize that those things, those events, are true and horrific and terrible. That people are actually capable of making it that way scares me a little.

HOWEVER, people are also capable of doing truly great things. Though I believe in today's society our energies are focused elsewhere on things that might not really matter in the long run.

I want to do something great. I want to be part of a generation that is remembered in the history books not as part of some terrible thing, but as a generation that did something great: something to stop hatred or poverty, or maybe both.