Born a king, born a slave

Ned Willard

We have far less influence on history than history does on us, as individuals, as communities, as nations or religions. History itself is not an impersonal deity or cosmic force. History is a set of acts and circumstances under which an individual or community finds itself, and they must adapt to survive or else suffer extinction.

Born a king, born a slave; it all begins here. Born a king of Sumer, whose city will discover writing and arithmetic and be destroyed by illiterate nomads. Born a king of France whose every whim becomes obligation for others and who will die self-satisfied. Born a slave and die a slave. Born a slave and be emancipated to live in poverty on the outskirts of an industrialized city. Born a slave and be freed to become a strong voice for freedom in a time and place when this was allowed.

Born a failed painter and suicide as a failed dictator. Born an Emperor of China not knowing you are the last of the line, or at an earlier date when you would be considered divine and in harmony with the universe. Born a bastard and die a drunkard. Born a bastard but be elevated top power and nobility by a careless royal father.

Born a freethinker in a place where you can proclaim this and live, or born a free- thinker and be burned alive in an up public square for having secretly written so.

History does not moralize like some impersonal force or celestial bookkeeper. It is ludicrous to say, ‘History will absolve me.’ History is yourself and other in a given place in time and its records are scanty and biased. History and not astronomy determines most, but not all, of your personal opportunities and achievements. History does not laugh or smile, approve or condemn: it is the shell within which we all live, willingly or not.

Nothing valid can be said about our universe or us unless the statement acknowdges the history that led up to the moment of speech and was a determining factor of the knowledge of who we are and who we can be.

History is a frame whatever happens.