The Book of Life

History is based upon the discovery and unearthing of past artifects and documents, which in the process allow us to discover more about what has been. We flip across the pages, we counter-check; we hypothesize; we postulate; we conceive ideas; we piece the pieces together, hoping that they fit and we can see the whole picture. By doing so, we unknowingly write the chapters of life in reverse.

We live in the present, and know only what today has brought and will bring. There is no mention of tomorrow, for tomorrow never comes, and yesterday is but clouded in a fading mist. We weave our tales, hoping to attain immortality, for our names and deeds to be forever etched in the minds of those who come after us. What the future holds we cannot fathom nor understand, and so we try to predict what is to come from the past.

Herein lies the element of time's cyclic nature. Almost everything natural is bound by time's cyclic forces, and once it makes its rounds, it comes back full circle. We have seasons, which go on year after year. We have the rotation of planets around the sun. But the most disputed of all these natural acts would be the course of human action. Are we bound by this cyclic nature? Will another Hitler rise up in the future? Will there be another superpower to match America's might? Will the choices we make be bound, if we can look back upon it and learn from the past? Therein lies the paradox.

History, as often propogated in the classroom, is the study of the past to learn from it. But one does question whether it has any use, or whether we are just playing the roles in a game of chance played by higher beings. Do we learn? Or are we doomed and destined to make the same mistake over and over again.

I do wonder really, whether I do learn from my history. Reflecting and thinking back, I see my errors, yet when choices come again, I repeat them. Yet it is not unknowingly, for I know that I am conscious of my choice. Yet there seems to be a lack of control over my life, as if there is some pre-destination that ensures I'm to be forever bounded by those issues. And one does wonder how something so wrong can seem like the best.

We dig up, search through the upheaveled mess in our past to search for the answers to the future. But what about the present? Where does it lie on a time line? What do we do, not then nor there, but now? Mistakes in the past carry wisdom for the future, but what does it hold for the present? What are we living in? Can existentialism be bound by time and space?

Questions unanswered. Musings about the larger issues of the human condition and life. Each time I go over a chapter of my life, it plays over and over in my memory, and it cannot be erased. Perhaps, the greatest book of history... is memory. The Watchers in the X-Men were beings who just watched and observed, noting everything that happened, but not playing a part in it. If such higher beings existed, perhaps the fusion of memories throughout time and space would unravel the truths we have all been seeking. But in truth, such an encyclopaedia and manual of life will never exist. We live based on instinct and advice.

I do wonder, whether that chapter in my life will come about again...