So it’s no secret that for a while now I have been obsessed with history – world history to be specific, but irony is that it happens to be the most universal general reading that once could do in History. And this blog-post is not going to be a hand-me-down list of reasons why you should pick up another hobby or reading genre, just because I thought so one fine evening, nor is it going to be an over-arching narrative of my personal discourse, which is totally uneventful, far from romantic/relatable and simply irrelevant to any universal context.
But what I will try to attempt is a compromise of the two ideas above to share a moral of the story kind of old-fashioned write-up, drawing the key takeaways from the entire process – getting intrigued by a subject, postponing a learning endeavor and finally following through. And like all things history, we start right from the beginning in middle school.
As our education system would have it, our history lessons started from the cave man and early civilizations to our Independence Struggle and covered everything in between – the French revolution, World Wars, Sufi and Bhakti Movements, Renaissance and the Mughals. But somewhere lost in the commonplace dislike of “mugging” answers, names of kings and their heirs, battles and bloodsheds, dates and timelines; my intense curiosity for a well-stitched narrative and the thirst for a holistic understanding of people, places and predicaments of past remained unsatiated. And then there was the doomed choice that we all had to make, right in high school – to pick majors and concentrations and that too without any flexibility. The pressure to deliver academic excellence (or the mirage of it) always kept us in check from pursuing knowledge elsewhere. All of this must sound like an exaggerated complaint and yes, that it is, but I do realize something now – which I didn’t back then. And that’s kind of what I have as the first moral of the story.
Education and Learning are two different things.
I apologize for the lack of better words, but I’d set my context clear for once and then hopefully, you get what I am saying.
When you pursue knowledge with the objective of gaining skills and insights that help you create economic value, generate a means of income and be of use to the world extrinsic to your individual needs and necessities, that is EDUCATION and it is very important. Its’ worth cannot be undermined and as utilitarian and practical it may sound; it is selfless and necessary to sustain our social structure.
But then there is another kind of pursuit of knowledge, one which serves to no other end than indulging in one’s curiosity, enriching the experience of life; and even though it sounds the most altruistic and perfect reason to pursue knowledge, it is kind of hard to overlook that it is but entirely self-centric. And this is what I mean when I say LEARNING.
We will leave it up to the debaters and philosophers to argue which pursuit is more meaningful but for the purpose of this essay, we shall come back to our world – or I should say my world, because I’m the one chronicling my experiences here - and acknowledge the fact that at most times in our formational or young-adult life, Education is forced to take priority. And that’s okay (because complaining respectfully would require an arduous effort) but something to remember here is that if we looked at Learning as a form of recreation and chose to spend some quality time pursuing it, then wouldn’t that be quite an experience.
But who am I kidding? I never picked up a history book in my college years, even though I downloaded pdfs and added a bunch of documentaries to my watch-list, I procrastinated this among other things – things that I always knew I want to do at some point in my life, but never too sure if this point is right about now?
And that’s where my second moral of the story comes – Do it now. Now is the only time you have to get anything done.
You can’t possibly spend more time in justifying yourself what you must do that makes you happy.
And I say this why? Because there’s something ecstatic about putting a child’s curiosity in an adult’s body and living the life of an old woman, for at-least an hour each day. I absolutely loved the feeling of curling up on my reading chair (nothing special about the chair, except the designation that I gave it, which made all the difference) with my morning tea in one hand and a pencil in another, hearing the birds chirp on my terrace and be simply reading – soaking in all of that humanity’s past had to offer – perspectives, insights, heart breaking stories, questions, everything.
You see we all have things we want to do, it might not be reading history, but it could be any hobby you want to pick up or any new personal project you might wish to start, and these things stay right there on the shelf, in the bucket-list, in our wish-lists and to-dos. And I will never be accurate and articulate enough to compile all the reasons why we end up procrastinating them but I can say this – few times in life, when you experience a state of mind when nothing seems like it is holding you back and you just pick up a task and get it done, without obsessing over the details, or trying to get it all perfect, and without giving up in the face of mundane obstacles - that feeling of doing something for yourself, the mere act of following through on an object of desire that doesn’t immediately press any instant gratification buttons in your mind, fills the heart with joy, perhaps a sense of pride and that feeling is amazing! And so one should pursue it, right? But what possibly could hold you back still?
Time for a third moral of the story? You guessed right.
Learning isn’t the easiest form of recreation or for that matter anything on that list isn’t.
It requires intent, commitment, time, yadi-yada the whole super difficult to source ingredient list. But here’s a thought. You have 24 hours a day, one thirds are taken by bodily functions, another third or more by what you must do – your job, school, duties, responsibilities, etc. And then in the other remaining few hours, you’re left with all the catching up to do – with people, worldly affairs, dog videos and what not. But just wait and listen to me once – when you do things simply because you "have to do" or are "used to doing" without any intention or commitment, it amounts to a waste of that time, or something close – it might be very easy to be consumed by habit, obligation or routine – but we should evaluate what good does it serve? If you could just replace it with something that you had an intent to learn/know, the sense of owning your time would triumph the instant dopamine hits, or at-least eventually.
And then while pursuing the interest, you might discover an entire community of enthusiasts who share your interest and passion for learning whatever it is that you are.
And that’s another moral in my story. I had a friend in this person for the longest time, and yet one of the reasons I ended up bonding with him was because of our shared passion and appreciation for history. We talked about our favorite episodes and concepts in history, visited museums together and exchanged book recommendations. And who knows someday, we’ll have an episode on a podcast talking about some of the most immersive experiences we’ve had in our individual journeys. Our paths of learning might be very different but our common-found love for the subject isn’t. And hence, you can hop-over to his article and discover more reasons to read history.
I think I have shared enough morals from my story now to hold your attention any longer and I mean we could go on and on about parts of history that fascinated me, but it won’t be of much help to you would it? I also say this because even though people would like to think of history as an uncool thing, we have massive communities of history lovers – and they have sub-groups or cults, so to speak - there are those who are dedicated to certain periods and/or geographies, or those who are experts on certain phenomena like Exodus of Jews or Genocides etc.
Personally, since my curiosity was child-like, my pursuit followed suite. I briefly touched up on all islands, all continents - attempting to cover all significant times and tried to see from there - where my interest took me. I started off with this Crash Course playlist on World History by John Greene on You-tube and went onto read a textbook that I downloaded from classzone.com. And what I discovered in my learning is that I hit a euphoria each time, I could map a common place modern day life reference to its historical content.
For eg, the cuisine of Kenya is very similar to that of India, even though our people have very little in common. It is because of the British Spice trade. Bingo! Now you won’t find it weird that you can eat the same Samosa in Kenya as you can in India. Also you remember that contestant in The Indian Matchmaking web-series on Netflix, who came from a Guyanese descent – well that's 'cause a lot of migrant labors from Indian Subcontinent settled in these African colonies with their families during the British Raj and then they migrated to newer lands (US) in search of a better life. A last throw - If you ever happen to watch a Turkish TV series or visit Turkey its and wonder how does this tiny (area wise) country with such a tiny population (compared to India or China) boast of such an exquisite racial diversity - from Caucasians and Europeans to Mongolian and Pathan features, you’ll see a genetic melting-pot of gorgeous people and know that it was because of all the stories embedded in History - the rise and fall of great civilizations – Greek, Roman, Persian, Ottoman, Turkish and Czars, the Crusades, and the plot twists of Middle East politics. And then maybe Dan Brown calling Hagia Sophia as the true center of the world, would make sense.
Reading literature, watching movies becomes ten folds more exciting when you know the actual historic context beyond what is shown – God if you love to travel, read history. If you love cuisine, read history. If you invest in commodities, read history. History will give you context to everything – from actions of individuals to predicament of our species. We’ve gone through so much – wars, diseases and economic downfalls, there is so much relief in knowing that each time, no matter how bad things got, humanity survived, it made a way out of it, this perspective alone brings comfort, given the strange times we live in.
Above all, history is a study of change – of passage of time, and of human intentions, actions and consequences. We might not comprehend the colossal mess of the present and we might not be able to predict the future, but we have the past and I know, the narratives will never add up, but something or the other will go beyond what you know and speak to you with the depth of wisdom that comes from centuries. And just to be able to touch this wisdom, ever so gently, I’ll pursue this subject forever and encourage others as well.
Below is a list of books recommended by friends and the internet searches I did on some of the topics that peaked my interest from a generalist point of view and I look forward to reading them in the next couple of months –
4. Understanding International Conflicts : An Introduction to Theory and History (Longman's Classics)
As is apparent, most of these books (very expensive tbh) are like over-view of key topics that might interest someone who flirts on and off with International Politics and some of them are even textbooks because honestly, history depends a lot on the point of view of the historian, so if you prefer getting a wholistic read and not an opinion piece (which sometimes you actually might need as no 2 and 3 above) then go hands-on with a text-book. It's lovely!
So hope, this gets some of you to start on something - the resources linked above, just a Wikipedia page of a historical topic, or any intentional learning that you had been putting off like me. Do it man! You'll feel GOOD.
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