I remember watching a public speaker angrily rail about events and travesties that occured over a 100 years ago. The speaker was passionate about past social injustices and it was almost as if they were reliving the injustice themselves while they spoke. "OK, you are right", I said to myself "and that shouldn't have happened, but if it had not happened, YOU AND I WOULD NOT EXIST TODAY!"
Imagine Clint Eastwood with a gun to your throat, asking you, "well punk, do you want to change the past so badly that you would have never been born, well do ya!". I am not brave enough to answer yes to that scenario, how about you?
I consider it stealing from the past to relive the distant past with present day anger and rage about a situation that if it had never happened, would mean you would never have been born.
If you were conceived after Hitler's rise to power, would you be willing to instantly disappear and never have existed in exhange for Hitler having become a painter? That is why I can never take someone too seriously if they rail about past injustices as if they themselves were injured by it. That injustice before you were born is the very reason you exist today!
Educating oneself about the past is a noble path to take in life, but lets not cling to the distant past as an excuse to carry a life long chip on ones shoulder in the present. The injustices from long ago are part of an undeniable truth, our own present day existence would never have happened without them.
Imagine Clint Eastwood with a gun to your throat, asking you, "well punk, do you want to change the past so badly that you would have never been born, well do ya!". I am not brave enough to answer yes to that scenario, how about you?
I consider it stealing from the past to relive the distant past with present day anger and rage about a situation that if it had never happened, would mean you would never have been born.
If you were conceived after Hitler's rise to power, would you be willing to instantly disappear and never have existed in exhange for Hitler having become a painter? That is why I can never take someone too seriously if they rail about past injustices as if they themselves were injured by it. That injustice before you were born is the very reason you exist today!
Educating oneself about the past is a noble path to take in life, but lets not cling to the distant past as an excuse to carry a life long chip on ones shoulder in the present. The injustices from long ago are part of an undeniable truth, our own present day existence would never have happened without them.
