Study of History - Enriching & Inspiring

History - Our bridge to past and future
 
I just finished reading City of Dijjins by William Daralymple. The book and the author deserves much praise for the careful chronicling of the author's stay in Delhi, his research and visits to various sites and narration of Delhi's history along side the appreciation of the forts, ruins and legends of he city.

Reading history leaves one with mixed feelings. On one end, our daily existence and quests seem inconsequential, mundane, irrelevant or passable in contrast to the grandeur, developments, thrills and climaxes of the past. Viewed against the backdrop of the historical canvas, our lives seem like a small dot which could get washed off in the next brush stroke of time.

And yet history lends a hope that like all the historical events which were perhaps equally mundane and commonplace when they occurred, our lives too can also form an important milestone in the evolution of society and mankind. One day, our lives too will form a part of history and will enrich it and seem more grand and wonderful when looked in hindsight, years or centuries later.

History presents a real life case study and experiences to learn from. It captures the events, emotions and reactions as they happened which when analyzed can present important lessons. It is not theoretical or fictional. It is what had actually happened. We can debate the rightness of the actions and reactions but cannot rule out the events themselves as impossible. Indeed history itself is debatable as it a version as perceived by one individual and there could be distortions in their. But that is a different debate all together.

Reading history of any discipline (e.g scientific discoveries) can lend us humility. How our actions today stand on the shoulders of so many small and large developments often unrelated with each other. How the discoveries in the past were done amidst so much more uncertainties, unknowns and with fewer tools. (Dr. Sidhartha Mukherjee has done an excellent job in 'The Emperor of All Maladies: A biography of cancer' and 'The Gene: An intimate history'. So has Bill Bryon in 'A short  history of nearly everything).

Finally, history helps us recognize, appreciate and enjoy the slowness of life. As the saying goes - 'Rome wasn't built in a day'. Everything takes time. And we need that patience especially in the internet and 4G era. The patience to build our dreams brick by brick, step by step, one event at a time - sometimes painfully slow, sometimes astonishingly fast. Patience is critical for maintaining motivation and dedication to a cause.

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