On the continuity and linearity of time.

We think in epochs, stages that are used to quantify and categorize the patterns  of our thoughts and actions both on a personal and social/historical level. Take for instance terms historians use to divide and distinguish between overarching historical periods. We can distinguish between the Medieval and the Renaissance, between imperial and republican Rome, between modern and post-modern movements and times. Academically speaking division is in many ways a necessary evil that must be accomplished to give historians and students of history an easy list of events broken down to fit into remarkably well divided segments on a timeline. And as with many things in academia it works well on paper, but it gives little to no conception of the actual flow of history, how events merge and shape each other long after their segment of the time line has ended.

How can this be so? It is still a line, continuous from the first recorded history to  the moment we are all now simultaneously experiencing.

To speak simply, we segment our own personal histories. Our youth, our college years, 20's, 30's, and onward until we reach retirement and eventually cease to be. This works well for us, to an extent, as a coping mechanism with which we effectually shelve our life lessons to be catalogued for later use and recollection. "Oh that happened in my twenties." Is a statement that has inherent in it the statement "But I don't act like that now." As if to mean that you are not currently who you were in your twenties or in High School, and that you do not still share the same propensity to make the same (or similar) mistakes. 

The same is true historically speaking. When we look at the actions perpetrated by our ancestors, to whom we can all trace our lineage in one way or another, we go to the shelf and say, "that happened in 1320." as if to mean that we are not the same species with the same nature and same propensity towards what our ancestors perpetrated. The line remains unbroken. None of us come from naught.

As with many coping mechanisms we use them as crutches that only seem to justify, not change our behaviors and mistakes, historically and personally. 

So I say let the line remain unbroken, and let us deal with what we are, directly and honestly.