How history got ruined?

History was my favorite subject in high school. I absolutely loved it. Humans have been doing cool shit for centuries.

And we’ve also done some terrible things that we just don’t talk about.

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History was an eye opener. The Dollop also helped shattered the illusion. The opening of The Watchmen and having to google the Tulsa Massacre left me in disbelief for a few weeks.

I’ve gone through all sorts of emotions around this historical discovery process. I was super frustrated for a while, sad, angry, depressed, confused, and resentful.

When I accepted that most of what I know about history comes from stories that contains some range of truth, it helped me zoom out and take a broader perspective. Maybe Thanksgiving wasn’t such a heart warming gathering and President Lincoln wasn’t so perfect. In other news, Santa Claus might not be real.

The ruining of history has opened up something much more powerful. I’m still just as fascinated as ever with the stories of humans from all of recorded history, but now I treat them more as fiction than truth and I’m able to enjoy it again.