HISTORY LESSON
History. I used to find it quite a fun subject at school. So I had a very nice history teacher, Mr. Dr. Beenakker. Yes, a doctor, and that in high school. An eccentric man. He was already quite aged, smoked pipe and was single. And he was still living with his mother. His way of teaching was, to put it mildly, rather unconventional. At the beginning of the school year, he aimed the mandatory history books in the trash and handed out thick piles of stencils. About China. Mao Ze Dong, Chiang Kai-cek, Yellow River, Yangtse Kiang. The history of China was his pet peeve and he brought that to the class, smoking pipe, in a very playful way.
But what is history?
A rhetorical question. What is history? Who decides what history is and what is not? And more rhetorical questions: Why is the battle of Hastings in school history booklets but no data and facts about pre-Colombian culture? Why do we even need to know things that happened, far from our bed, in the past? I already hear sounds here and there that this is necessary for your general development . Something like that again. Who decides what is good for your overall development, what you need to know for that? Do you remember when the Battle of Hastings took place and what exactly happened then? Is someone who knows that but knows nothing about the pre-Colombian culture than well developed and vice versa, someone who knows everything about pre-Colombian culture but knows nothing about the Battle of Hastings, not well generally developed? To be honest, I think it's all nonsense, it's nice if you know something about something, but at the same time that's as important as it's unimportant.
Personal history
Your personal history is actually the only history that really matters. At least, it has more right to matter than all that 'general' history that has ended up in the history booklets. Your personal history has come about through direct experiences, you are energetically connected to that. Your personal history has made you what you are today. Not all kinds of indirect experiences, such as stories about Duke William I of Normandy who defeated the army of the Anglo-Saxon King Harold II with an Anglo-French army during the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066. So, your memory has been refreshed in that respect, at least for a while.
DM
