I was just struck by a strong feeling while I was reading W.E.B Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk - a simultaneous fear and hope. I was sitting in the cafeteria, surrounded by my peers. I wondered, how many of them truly understand their history? Not just their direct ancestors’ stories, but also the history of our country and humanity?
Because I feel I have realized recently just how insane our current predicament is. On one hand, we have taken great bounds on so many of the ideals our nation was founded on. No longer does rampant discrimination and dehumanization pervade the masses, at least not to the same extent. But are we any more free? Are we free if we take everything humanity has done till now for granted? Are we free if we’re only being told what to desire? We are like a child with a huge inheritance - just carelessly experiencing life, taking it for granted, not knowing how invaluable it is, giving it all away for the next shiny thing. Just think - one of the biggest problems of modern day is not necessarily a lack of opportunity, it is essentially the laziness to pursue it. My peers complain about education because it’s “boring,” but that same education is something the past generations had to fight for.
On one hand, perhaps it is a good thing the younger generations do not bear the same weight of oppression. We definitely have it easy in a way. But our problems are also different. We are disconnected from our history. We are disconnected from our desires. We are wandering aimlessly in a rapidly changing world taking all that has been given to us for granted.
Here we are, in the future. Living the dreams that they worked so hard to make a reality. And yet, something is still off. We have subtle problems that might be even more dangerous. And without knowing the value of what we have, we may end up risking it all. Going in circles.
Here I am, aware of most of this. I feel the importance of our history, and of the significance in the time that I exist. And yet, I still feel doubt. Why does it seem like no one else see the problems I see? Why don't they want to look deeper? Am I just looking at the wrong problems? Am I delving too far into the abstract? Can change for good be made in the realm of subjectivity?
I hope this all means something. Everything I'm learning, the connections I'm making across subjects. One of my biggest fears is that I'm just seeing what I want to see. Unearthing problems that only really exist in my mind. That I'm addicted to a cycle of learning because it really is just amusing to me and not because I intend to act on it. Or that I just do all this elaborate thinking to inflate my own ego. Or I'll never understand things because of my background as a privileged white male. All these fears have been there all along, yet I try to pay them no heed.
All I know is that learning is possible. Changing who I am is possible. Taking action is possible. I’m simply collecting points of knowledge to inform my views and unveil patterns. I might be wrong right now, but that doesn’t mean I’ll always be. I can’t just distrust everything I’ve learned because of a feeling of fear or uncertainty.
If these figures of the past can trust themselves, so can I. I can be someone who strives with their intuition, challenging conventionally held truths. W.E.B Du Bois himself must have felt discomfort critiquing Booker T. Washington’s way of making change, but he did it anyway - and a lot of people shared the same unspoken thoughts.
Through learning about history, I can find the roots of freedom so I know how to protect them. I can learn to connect and influence others, and take them with me on this shared journey. If I can't trust this path of learning forward, I guess the worst consequence is finding that I’m delusional and life is just uncertain and endlessly complex. And I already sort of know that.
The echoes still shine from the bright figures of the past, reminding me that even the brightest will meet the same end. I'm going to meet their same end. But at least they lived fully. They made waves. While I'm here, why not try to follow in their footsteps and learn from the echoes of their advice?
“This is the best reason to learn history: not in order to predict the future, but to free yourself of the past and imagine alternative destinies. Of course this is not total freedom – we cannot avoid being shaped by the past. But some freedom is better than none.”
— Yuval Noah Harari (historian)
If we do not know the part we are playing in the stories we enact, we have no control over how the story ends.
