History – travel through memory lanes

HISTORY is part of everybody’s life - family history, history of the place where you are born, history of the school you studied, history of the State, the country and the world, history of human civilization, it goes on. To know who you are, where you are coming from and what has been happening around you, it is important that we learn, understand and know the history. By this we can learn or expect where we are heading and what can happen ahead of us. History has various perspectives, Family, Community, Religion, District, State, Country, Political System, World etc.

There is immediate history, old history and ancient history. History gives an explanation to your identity. History tells the story about us. History can tell us where we are heading, especially the political history, job history, career history etc. History makes us better informed of the past and the present-day issues. Learning history makes us better citizens where we live. History teaches us values, success and failure. History allows us to learn from the past and appreciate what was good for us and helps us in our personal growth.

It is important to study history because it is essential for all of us to understand ourselves and the world around us. The study of history is not visible, it is about things that happened before which we need to imagine or visualize, it is about what already happened, which we cannot change, but we can change based on history. When we learn history, as a well-informed person we can analyses current situations and issues better. History makes us well-informed of the world and how things happen and change. When we learn about ancient wars and modern wars, it is all about power and control and give warning signs. By learning history, we could easily figure out how the current situations happened. History often repeats itself.

Everything has to have a history and the study of history is very complex. An individual when gets into the study of history, it starts with his history, about one’s father’s and mother’s family, where they were born, who their parents were, the location of the country they lived, the circumstances and the types of life, and it goes on. Then the individual learns the history of everything connected to the individual. The study never stops.

Historians interpret human identities, civilizations and transformations. History has several sides of human behavior, human interactions, human development, human aggression and human activities. History is changed by humans. There is natural history which is also influenced by humans. Human migration forces the migrations of birds and animals. History teaches us the impact of human activities on health and the environment.

History can be very personal when we learn about our family, community, place where we lived, the past and the present. Everybody has a history, every country has a history, every community has a history, every language has a history, every religion has a history, every invention has a history, every human race has a history and the world is a combination of all these things.

You can go back to your own life and travel through the memory and realize how many changes have occurred in your family, community, place of birth, country, and world. If you can learn the history 100, 500, 1000, 2000 and 3000 years ago, you will be astonished to learn about human development and the world.

All of us have a lot of memories about our life, especially those who are retired and older. There are memories of childhood, school life, college life, living with parents and siblings, life with extended family, professional life, business life, community life, religious life, life in a village, town or city in India or outside, life in a country, life in the world and things we had experienced, learned, affected us and influenced us. 

What I am proposing is that everybody does this exercise while they are sitting alone relaxing, getting on the bed to sleep, or relaxing, travel through our memory lanes in any of the areas I mentioned on a regular basis. If you can travel through one of the memory lanes every day, it will be a great experience, very relaxing, sometimes makes you think and helps you define the meaning and purpose of life. I urge all of you to do this exercise.

Life in this world will continue for billions of years. We spend a very small portion of time in this world and during that time we become part of history. After a few years, you are forgotten. We talk about very few people and events in the world. 

There are well-known good and bad people we talk about  Ram, Krishna, Emperor Ashoka, Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, Jesus Christ, Mohammad Nabi, Julius Caesar, King George, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln etc. and events like World War I and World War II. Those are written histories and permanent records of the world. Lifestyle, communication and transportation systems have changed. We have no idea what will happen 100, 500, 1000, 10000 years from now. I believe that there will be better records of history. History is a very important part of your life and also your memory of your past.