We are not makers of history, we are made by history.
Dr Martin Luther King Jr
A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.
Marcus Garvey
Though the above passage by MLK can be disputed, especially with his own unbelievable contribution to history, the essence of what he says is true, we are all shaped by what has come before us.
I also feel the Garvey quote sums up my relationship with the pre perfectly.
I have for a long time felt the pull, the urge, towards the past, whether it be in the local vicinity and the very ground I walk daily or the lands across the waters of which I have yet to tread, I have always wanted to know what came before me.
I found out a few years back that the great Mark Twain had local ties to where I grew up in North West London, spending the whole summer of 1900 in Dollis Hill House, in what is now Gladstone Park.
He said of it
Dollis Hill comes nearer to being a paradise than any other home I ever occupied
I find it fitting that he has one of the most pensive quotes about the past ever written.
I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
Mark Twain
His words, aswell as being revelatory with his unique position on death, bring home the important point about the human life span as an era.
His era has passed, ours is now but…
In a short time, this will be a long time ago.
Werner in Slow West