A Speck in History

I have always been a proponent of traveling and experiencing what is outside of the the small area we know, having been lucky enough in my life to see a lot of the United States and several places in the world. You can experience new things in the area you live and it grows exponentially the further you travel. It would seem ignorant to not realize or to search for more understanding outside of what we have to ourselves.

As technology expands and the capabilities of communication grow, the more it seems people have retreated in to their own bubbles. This has never been more evident than the recent political divide in America. With the ability to connect more and more to people, to access ideas and thoughts from other places, it seems humans continue to close themselves off in to their small world.

This blows my mind because of just what a tiny speck in the history of Earth we find ourselves. The first Homo sapiens showed up over 300,000 years ago and there are more than 7.8 billion people on this planet right now. That represents so much history and so many ideas and others existing with us right now. We are a tiny dot on the timeline, but I believe people find the concept overwhelming. Instead we should be in awe and take a responsibility to take that all in.

A term that recently blew my mind was sonder. Sonder is the realization each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. At face value it would seem to be obvious, but it is somewhat contradictory to how we function. People think of themselves as the center of life with everyone on tertiary levels to their own narrative, but everyone is the center of their own story. Just thinking of that opens your mind to more understanding, empathy and our own places in history and the world. It also makes the history of people and the Earth's population even more amazing.

My family has always had an interest in history and one of my favorite experiences was our childhood trip to the east coast. The reason for the trip was to see the Civil War sites, but along the way we saw the history of the beginning of the United States of America. This is a period of 500 years of history and, while it didn't dawn at me at the time, that's six or seven generations of history. That's the beginning of my own country and one of the most studied periods of history, the founding of the United States.

However, it is not the end-all be-all of history I believe it is thought of. This is a concept that didn't resonate with me until I was older. I have been inside the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, built in 1473. On that trip I walked inside the Roman Coliseum, built in 90. I also have been to Sensoji Temple in Tokyo, built in 645. Very quickly these buildings dwarfed the history of the American people.

While I was traveling through Europe the age of what I was seeing was not lost on me. In Rome you could physically see the history of the city as traveling from neighborhood to neighborhood featured different architecture. Being in the land of the Renaissance and Medieval times was awe-inspiring because of the age and, frankly, romanticized era of history. I cannot describe how beautiful it was to see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

I knew the age and some of the history of the ancient civilizations of China, Japan and Korea when I visited but it didn't really set in until I got home. My dad asked me about the trip and I remember telling him “I've been to the east coast and to Europe but it's really eye opening being in an area that old.” It was at that moment that I really became aware of what I experienced.

Being inside the Roman Coliseum was something of a dream because of Roman history, the awe of its size and age and what had happened inside it. Seeing a structure almost 2000 years old still relatively standing is nothing short of amazing. To me, that is something I don't feel you can see and be inside and not want to understand more of the history of the world.

This will only further be magnified if I'm able to make the eventual trip to Egypt. Of course one of the things I'm most looking forward to seeing is the pyramids, and the last one was built in 2560 BCE, over 4000 years ago. It is an area that is part of the dawn of mankind. I don't know that I'll ever be able to put in to words what that experience will mean as the speck I am in history will become even clearer.

There's absolutely a bit of a tightrope walk in experiencing this and trying to open yourself up to just how much exists outside of yourself because people are already prone to feel insignificant. That isn't the intention I hope to set by telling people to realize their tiny place in the history of Earth, but more so to realize and open themselves up there to all that is out there. You can leave your mark, you are important in your contributions to your place of living and everyone matters. However, you aren't the only thing that matters.

There are many factors that can limit people's experiences, financially being a big one, but that shouldn't stop anyone from trying to expand their knowledge and experience. My biggest observation from the recent civil discussions, focused mostly on the Black Lives Matters movement, is people answering from their perspective and experiences. Everyone does that, it's what shapes your views and instincts, but the problem is people don't acknowledge what exists outside of them. People don't acknowledge sonder and too many people talk and don't listen.

Being unable to travel and choosing not to experience are two entirely different things. I am sick of the people ending an argument with 'Well that's my opinion.' This is so flawed in logic and ignorance. Just because it's opinion does not mean it's incorrect, and a majority of the time it's people shutting down the argument because they don't want to see the other side. Everyone isn't going to agree, nor should they. A community that all thinks the same way will fail to evolve and have different ideas to further evolution.

I admit to not being the most avid reader, but this is the simplest of things people can do to at least face other thought processes. If you only seek out what you agree with you're doing yourself a disservice and failing to continue to educate and better yourself. All people should always try to improve themselves. Those that don't will stick with only what they want to know and agree with and be left behind.

We are just a tiny speck in history but you can do what you want with your tiny speck. I believe life is about collecting experiences, learning and growing. A new motto I stumbled across and have made a core belief is "Die with memories, not dreams." Life itself is hard and will bring about plenty of challenges but it is lazy to leave it at just that. We have the tools to learn and further our own communities for the betterment of future generations and to choose not to is to choose ignorance. There is so much history and so many people out there that had their own speck of history and everyone should seek to understand more.