History

History is a set of lies agreed upon
Napoleon Bonaparte

Some of us are obsessed with the past. We study it in great detail, searching for clues as to why things are the way they are today. Sometimes we study it searching for clues as to how to avoid certain problems that occured in the past from happening again. Sometimes we study it just out of sheer interest, to see how people coped with life at a time when they had a different set of tools to use.

But we forget that the past is not necessarily the way it is portrayed in books. The people who wrote the books, if they were involved in the situation themselves, wrote about it according to their cultural and individual biases and points of view. Some people write the history books as if the Holocaust never existed, because they are so ashamed that it did. Writers want to make it look as if they, or their society, did the right thing; especially when they did not. History is a set of lies that people agree on.

But history is not just about the history of society. History is also a set of lies when it involves a particular individual. We look back upon our own past in a way that is colored by our present opinions and points of view. We choose what part of our past to bring into memory, and incorporate into our self-image. Our own past is the way we choose to see it at this time.

When we remember something we typically search for some memory that supports what we currently beleive about ourselves and who we are. Our own individual history is a set of lies, colored by our biases and opinions, that we, as an individual, have agreed must have happened in order to justify our self-image. The truth is that none of the past might really be true. Focus on what is happening now as you look towards the future. The past doesn't matter because it isn't even the truth.