History of the World: Part 1

I've been told I live too much in the past. OK, maybe. But I have a theory that our college majors are more than anything, an indication of how we think: I majored in Classical Studies, thus digging through the past, and translating dead languages. But, don't we all have an obligation towards knowing history? Of ourselves, of our families, of our country? Like, shouldn't every American know when the Vietnam war occurred?

Aren't we supposedly doomed to repeat history if we don't have but an inkling of what has come before us? Are we not set to raze villages that have yet to be built if our hands are too heavy with ignorance?

I'm sitting on the G train, headed south towards Church Ave. I'm reading "The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War," by Paul Hendrickson, one of my favorite undergrad professors.

Two gentlemen sitting to my right ask me what I'm reading. Now, I should add, I already have a relationship with these strangers. Several stops previous, they'd discussed their concern for whether or not they were headed in the right direction - to 4th Avenue and 9th Street. Eavesdropper that I am, I looked up and nodded, yes. Then they eventually sat down on the seat next to me. And jumped up at the stop before their destination, and shoved open the closing doors, and realized it was not their stop. And then released themselves back on to the seats. This is when we smiled and shared a moment, and I told them they were all good - next stop. And this is when they asked me about my book, and its nature and content.

It's about Robert McNamara, I explained. They didn't know who he was. The Secretary of Defense during the onset of the Vietnam War, I explained, who had a hand in masterminding the whole mess.

They didn't know what I was talking about. But they were middle-aged men, probably 15 to 20 years my senior. Pure East Coast accents. Pure English speech. Pure American, with liberty and justice for all.

One of the gentlemen asked me when the Vietnam War happened. He thought maybe his grandfather was in it. Yeah, he was sure his grandfather fought in it. When did it happen, like the 60s, he asked? I said the 60s and early 70s. Oh, well maybe that wasn't the war in which is grandfather fought.

They got off the train. Wished me a good day, sweetheart. I kept reading.

I've heard a lot about this whole notion of "Saturn Returns" lately. According to Wikipedia, this is, "an astrological phenomenon that occurs at the ages of 27-30, 58-60, 86-88, etc., coinciding with the time it takes the planet Saturn to make one orbit around the sun. It is believed by astrologers that as Saturn "returns" to the degree occupied at the time of birth—approximately every 29.5 years—a person crosses over a major threshold and into the next stage of life. With the first Saturn Return, a person leaves youth behind and enters adulthood. With the second Return, maturity. And the third and usually final Return, a person enters wise old age."

So here I am. 27 years old. Leaving youth behind and entering adulthood. I'm revisiting a lot of my childhood in therapy. I'm asking my former roommates from the last several years of my life during which stages of my "career" have I appeared to be most productive and happy. I'm rustling the dust to the surface from the carpet that is my life and figuring out what gets tossed in the garbage, swept away to be a memory, and what settles back down, fodder for another future stage.

And I'm learning a lot. Like why I chose certain coping mechanisms when I was a teenager to deal with my anxieties, and how I can let them cease, or at least, confront them. Like how I am happiest when I am writing - but like, ONLY writing - and working on nonfiction books and long-term projects. Like how I am an optimistic person, and how I do best when my energy is not being drained mostly towards others, but thrown into my writing and art.

So maybe I live too much in the past. Maybe I'm spending too much of my therapy session rehashing stuff from before. But isn't it important to gain perspective? To sift through the dust and understand why things are the way they are, and confirm with ourselves what baggage we'll be carrying on the next airplane ride to the next life stage?

I think it is. And I think it's crucial that we understand our histories. We understand when we shouldn't have gone to war, and when we should have. I'd argue that we should never go to war, but that's just my pacifist opinion.

It struck me as deadly that these gentlemen didn't know much about the Vietnam War. Not that I'm a savant on the subject matter myself, but I have an inkling. I have a sense. I have a clear vision of how we've repeated the mess in the last 10 years. Same shit, different day.

I had someone ask me yesterday - how are you today? This was right after the G train book incident. I told him: same shit, different day. He said: oh boy! Like what I'd said was some articulation of frustration and grief for my cycle of repetition. Maybe he was right. I mean, it is frustrating: same shit, different day.

So how do we get out of the cycles? I say that the key is history. I really do. That understanding the past is our key to unlocking the future. Now, where does the present lie in all of this? Well, I'm not sure. Maybe that's the bit I'm working on figuring out myself...how to be in the present. Or maybe understanding the past is the key to unlocking the future, and maintaining the present. Who knows.

I just know that history is significant. Because we've been on this same shit, different day crap for millennia. Some changes, but not much. That's my take at least. And I'd argue it's because we don't understand history. I mean, we make shit up and leaders and rulers get to write history and dictate how it gets taught. And that's really not productive anyhow.

So perhaps if we start with our own histories - our own truthful and authentic histories - we have a shot and understanding the collective history. We have a shot at embracing the return of Saturn, as we emerge into a new chapter.