If you ever want to meet the closest thing in this society to a Sisyphus, it's surely a history teacher. This could be an instructor for any age currently enrolled in school. To watch the inexorable march of time through terribly written essays and incorrectly labeled maps takes an incredible amount of patience and acceptance of humankind that never receives enough credit. History teachers are the bassists of the education field - integral, yet somehow relatively easy to step in front of for the spotlight. But we don't mind.
I write this tongue-in-cheek, but at the same time, it is truly maddening to be a history teacher during times in which there is little regard for what has been tried and has failed in the past. It's no surprise anyone in positions of power try and suppress access to knowledge. Of course, this could and does include lawmakers, but also includes anyone who stands to profit from intentionally omitting vital information for consumers and the wider populace. Choices are already being made before we're even presented with a reason to make a choice. Fate is guided by a hand that is invisible in its occlusion behind the law.
On another level, the experience of being a history teacher who not only covers factoids, but tries to create a broad tapestry for students to see how various aspects of human society work interdependently, has also opened up a chasm of understanding that points to the futility of it all. The same questions have been posited and worked through for millennia. For all of recorded history. And before that, if we could find proof. Since the artwork produced throughout has, in many ways, relayed certain universal constants across space and time. Despite any changes we make to the cultural and geographic environments, we still end up as a species in comically similar experiences with only stylistic changes.
One side of me knows this is the cyclical nature of things, that there's nothing sinister about it. The other side sees the continual patterns and becomes overwhelmed by how little we seem to learn that if this experience is only this cyclical live-born-die, then why aren't we working to make it the best for everyone? After all of the historical evidence, the literary output, artistic expressions, we still act untethered from that reality, as if whatever lay ahead has to be better, if only I can get there first. It's like if someone's going to get to heaven, nirvana, the afterlife and colonize it for themselves and their ilk. Monarch butterflies take generations within one year to reach their destination from Mexico to the mid-Atlantic region. Their genetic code works collectively for the benefit of the future, not to its detriment. Ours once did, but somewhere along the line, we also learned how to manipulate the perception of our own experiences. I'm not sure how we get back to that point of cooperation and trust - it will take generations. It would likely also take reclaiming our time and attention from technology and other traps of modern convenience. Using our hands, our minds and our hearts to connect not only with each other, but the material world around us, grounds us in what we experience on a daily basis.
