Put Up Your Dukes! Let's Create A Better Version of History

 July 30, 2024

   This has been on my mind quite a bit. How do we create better history? And, by better, I mean one that most of us can agree on. I'm haunted by this quote:

"Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths."

—Yuval Noah Harari

   It's true and for a long time a whole bunch of strangers in this country believed in some pretty major common myths. Today, most of those myths seem shattered. So, by extension, it seems like our only hope as a country is to find new common myths? I have found a few clues from Jill, to wit:

“To study the past is to unlock the prison of the present.”

—Jill Lepore

“The past is an inheritance, a gift and a burden. It can’t be shirked. You carry it everywhere. There’s nothing for it but to get to know it.”

—Jill Lepore

“To write something down doesn’t make it true. But the history of truth is lashed to the history of writing like a mast to a sail.”

—Jill Lepore, all of the above quotes from “These Truths: A History of The United States”

Saguaros Say The Darndest Things

"Put Up Your Dukes!"

Lessons My Grandson Taught Me

   I recently told you the story about taking my grandson to art bootcamp for four days, and, how on the fifth, and extra day (thanks be to Delta Airlines and their tech meltdown), Weston took me to school on the ethics of being snarky. 

Weston During His Art Bootcamp

   I was raised on the "nothing is sacred" school of humor and when he quipped to me that nobody reads Facebook, I thought that was hilarious and wanted to include it as the punchline to my blog. I read it to him and he very calmly said he didn't want me to run it. Seriously, he's a little guy and I think I could take him, but his honesty and his forthrightness took me aback. Why not? I asked him, it's funny and the joke is at my expense. He simply said, "I don't want to be mean." Wow. It stunned me and in that moment he took ME to school. In this time of Snark On Steroids, he not only chose to not go there, he demanded that he not be portrayed as mean. I realized in that moment my two new prerequisites in life are now crystal clear: I am for humor with compassion and if it doesn't fit in that container, I don't want anything to do with it.

   Thanks grandson, for taking your grandpa to school.

“Anyone who believes you can’t change history has never tried to write his memoirs.”

—David Ben-Gurion