February 5, 2008

HISTORY IN THE MAKING

There is some evidence coming to light suggesting that our planet has been populated by life several times and that each time most traces have disappeared. Whether that turns out to be the case or not, gets me wondering about our own time on the planet. Will anyone know we have been here? What happens to those favourite stories about our misspent youth, funny family events from childhood, those special moments when we first dated, drove our first car, received a special award, laughed, cried, loved, fell down, got up, kept going, lived and died. Will our children, grandchildren, neices and nephews know who we were. Not likely, since they have their own memories to create, just like we did.
During a course that I took several years ago, I made a commitment to write my own life history, which I just started recently. Whether my own children read it or not, is not the point of writing it. The point, I am just learning, is that it allows me to view past decisions, failures, successes, joys and sorrows with a certain detachment, knowing that I survived all of it. There is a cathartic effect in remembering the various forks in the road, that contrasts quite nicely with the mystery of not knowing what might have happened, had I chosen the other route. The passage of time brings the realization that all we really have is the present, but the process of writing your own life history, is one I highly recommend. If you, like me, have a few regrets, then you will also become familiar with the concept of revisionism. Why not, every historical source since the beginning of time, utilized the same process. And when we get right down to it, if all of this simply disappears, at least you have had your day in history.

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