I am
always amused when I hear someone say on the television, “We are seeing
history”, or muse about some event being historic. Well, anything that happens
becomes history or historic. There is nothing significant about that. What is
different is that some history is more noteworthy and likely to be remembered
than other kinds. In our own lives, we have certain things that stand out from
the past. They may be trivial, silly things to others, but they are historic to
us. Another thing about history, it isn’t always the truth. For thousands of
years, history has been embellished, whitewashed, or twisted into some kind of
lie. Go through any child’s history book and you will find things that are not
quite the truth. These days, many people want to rewrite history to paint a
more favorable portrait of things or to push a social agenda. Military history
is full of people who died ‘heroic’ deaths, when in reality, they may have not
been so heroic. History does not make an accurate portrayal of the way things
were back then than the print or electronic media does these days in presenting
the truth. That is one thing you can admire about the Dao. It is all true.
