The ancient Greeks, pre-Herodotus believed that history was accurate until it was two generations removed from those who experienced it. In other words, if I were to tell someone, on my deathbed, about Obama's election, and he, in turn, were to tell my account to someone else on his deathbed, that recipient's generation would be the last to have an accurate account of the story, before Obama turned into the son of Zeus and some unlucky rape victim, and won the presidency after slaying the minotaur. Granted, this was back before they bothered to write things down, because no one could read and barbarians were constantly invading and using histories as toilet paper.
World War I was the destruction of an old world order, and lead to the formation of a new one, which, once again, has become obsolete. With Buckle's death also comes the realization that World War I was not the start of the modern age. The world has now gone from being bipolar - with the world aligned along the lines of the USA and the USSR - to being schizophrenic, with dozens of other nations becoming more economically powerful and getting better at basketball. (Seriously, Lithuania?) World War I has now faded into the background of history, something that none of us have experienced and something that can only be read about, never fully understood as it once was.
So, to everyone who reads this, I have a challenge for you. Participate, somehow, in something that you think will be defining of our era. That doesn't mean go out and enlist, or, conversely, strap on a vest of plastic explosives and run into a mosque pertaining to the other sect during Friday prayers. (In fact, please don't do the second one.) Go live in a tree in the rain forest before they're all wiped out, or fight some Japanese whalers. Bring democracy to your military dictatorship nation. Attend a gay wedding. Get your life ruined by a social gaffe on facebook. Or just, I don't know, catch Bieber Fever if you can't come up with anything cool to do. You don't have to do it now, but when you do, make sure it pushes your comfort zone, and you walk away with a good story to tell. And tell it to everyone who will listen.
I was going to post about something else (probably how sports are important) but then I read about Mr. Buckle's death, and I forgot what I was going to write about and wrote this instead. Because I think it's important. We're all going to be part of history someday. It's said of Herodotus that, "if it isn't true, it ought to be," and I want to live in an era where what is true and what ought to be true are one in the same.
