Why does your history matter?
Everyone has a story. As individuals, we each have a set of events and experiences that shaped our attitudes and perspectives. Our personal, immediate histories help define us as people and guide us through life. But there are histories that began even before we could define ourselves or let the world define us. Our parents’ histories, our grandparents’ histories, and all those who came before made choices and were thrown obstacles that affect us today. It is our heritage, and it has placed us in the shoes we are in now.
Authors have been asking this question for years, trying to discover how their past, a past they have no knowledge of, resonates today. Even in fairly recent literature, writers have tried to answer, from “Beloved” where Toni Morrison examines the brutal effects of slavery to “Everything is Illuminated,” where Jonathan Safran Foer goes to Eastern Europe to learn about his ancestors who were evacuated by the Nazis. History can even bring people together, as African-Americans and Jews have always had a bond because of their shared common history.
Even if our histories are painful, should we acknowledge them, or do we not look back? Can a history be something that is simply felt and an inherent part of you, rather than information and facts? Why does your history matter?
Individual stories are the only way we can connect personally to history. Anything you can feel cannot be erased, so it is important that YOUR history matters, even more maybe than history as a collective whole which, as data and documents, can be erased. Experiences and emotion cannot.
My history matters because it has brought me to the place I am today. The experiences of my ancestors have made my life possible.
Additionally, since I am Jewish, it is important that I know my history, so that the same atrocities that occurred in the past do not get repeated in my time or in the future.
Every decision and motion we make is informed by our personal, familial and cultural histories. At this point, so much of what drives us is based in implications and innuendo. Understanding where someone comes from and what experiences shape the way they look at things is the only to try to understand someone else.
It means everything.
Why does it mean everything?
