This will be a very short chapter in its original form, because there was really only one thing I wanted to bring across to you, my hopeful little sleuths reading this account. Well... it started out that way anyway. Funny how that keeps happening to me. I begin with one little thought, and before I know it my brain is off chasing another question around the room like a puppy after a butterfly. My Karl says I do that all the time. I tell him it is called exploring. He tells me it is called making a five-page chapter into twenty. I think I am winning that argument. So here we go. We study the past. Why?
So we know what people decided hundreds of years ago? Does it really matter? That is not me trying to be smart or difficult. It is a real question I have asked myself more than once. People always tell us to study history because history repeats itself. But does it? When I started thinking about that statement, I realized something that bothered me. Everything that made people choose their paths back then has changed completely today. The roads are different. The tools are different. The dangers are different. The things people know are different. Even the things people fear are different. So why do we keep acting like history is a recipe book?
There is a saying someone always used to tell me, and I ways had the same response. "Your past actions will tell us what your future actions will be." Now that sounds wonderfully wise, does it not? It even sounds like something you would stitch onto a pillow or hang on the wall beside one of those pictures of ducks flying over a lake. But then my puzzle brain started poking at it. Yes, it seems like I am going over everything I already talked about in the paths chapter. You are probably saying, "Julie... are we walking around the same tree again?" Nope. Not this time. Because there is one little piece sitting right in the middle of that statement that almost nobody notices. It is the tiny screw holding the whole Machine together. You have to agree with this statement before the first one can even work. People never change.
Or maybe I should say it another way. People never adjust their thinking because of what they learned. People continue doing exactly the same thing no matter what happens.
Well...
Do you believe that? Because I do not. Not even a little.
That one tiny assumption is the hinge point. It is the little pin holding the whole door together. Pull that pin out, and the entire argument falls over on the floor. That is why I smile whenever someone says history predicts the future. I always want to ask them, "Really? Then why did you stop touching hot stoves?" If history always predicts the future, then every single one of us should still be making every mistake we ever made. We would still be falling off our first bicycle. Still burning our toast. Still dating that one person our friends warned us about. Oops... maybe I should stay away from that one. See? There I go again. But you get my point. If you burn your hand grabbing a knife sitting over a hot grill, what happens next time? Do you grab it exactly the same way? Of course not. You move the knife. You grab a towel. You use a different hand. You wait a minute. You learn. You adjust. You change. That is what people do. Every single day.
In fact, if you really stop and think about it, your entire life is nothing but tiny adjustments. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. You wake up a little late, so you skip making toast. It rains, so you grab an umbrella. The grocery store is closed, so you stop somewhere else. A road is blocked, so you drive around it. Someone smiles at you, so your whole mood changes. Someone says something hurtful, so maybe you become a little quieter. Every little event changes the next choice. Every choice changes the next path.
That is why I cannot completely agree when someone says history tells us exactly what will happen. Because the person making tomorrow's decision is not the exact same person who made yesterday's. They know one more thing now. Maybe only one. Maybe one hundred. But they are different.
Even if only by a tiny amount. Imagine you are walking down the sidewalk and a huge concrete bag suddenly drops right in front of you. Now answer honestly. Do you walk straight into it? No. You step around it. You laugh. You might even jump because it scared the stuffing out of you. Then you keep going. That tiny choice already changed your path. Maybe you walk around it to the left instead of the right. Maybe that causes you to meet somebody. Maybe it causes you to miss somebody. Maybe you arrive thirty seconds later than you would have otherwise. One tiny change. One completely different path. Life does that constantly. Which means history cannot possibly be copied exactly, because nobody is standing in exactly the same place twice.
That is why I say studying history to predict the future is a little... well... bogus. Yep. I said it. Do not throw tomatoes at me just yet. I am not saying history has no value. Please do not write me letters telling me I hate historians. My Karl would probably make me answer every one of them too. What I am saying is much smaller than that. History is not a crystal ball. It is not a magical book that tells you exactly what tomorrow will bring. History is simply yesterday. Nothing more. Nothing less. The people living then made decisions that fit their world. Not ours. Their answers solved their questions. Not necessarily ours. And I think that is where so many people accidentally wander off the trail. They spend all their time trying to copy old answers instead of understanding the questions that created them.
History is simply yesterday. Nothing more. Nothing less. The people living then made decisions that fit their world, not ours. Their answers solved their questions, not necessarily ours. And I think that is where so many people accidentally wander off the trail. They spend all their time trying to copy old answers instead of understanding the questions that created them.
Now here is where I want to stretch this thought just a little bit further, because after I wrote that first part I sat back in my chair and thought, "Well, Jules, that almost sounds like you are telling everyone history is useless." That is not what I meant at all. Not even close. History is not useless. It is just used the wrong way most of the time.
You see, I do not think history is a map. Maps tell you exactly where to go. If you follow the same roads, you should end up at the same place. History is not like that because the roads keep changing. Roads get wider.
Bridges disappear. New cities are built. Forests become neighborhoods, and neighborhoods become forests again if we wait long enough. So if you are using yesterday's map to walk through today, you might find yourself standing in the middle of somebody's swimming pool wondering where the road went. That would be embarrassing. It would also make a very funny story if Karl wrote it, although he would probably make me the one standing in the pool.
History is more like a box of parts sitting on a workbench. Some of the pieces still fit the puzzle in front of you. Some belong to puzzles that no longer exist. Others look completely useless until one day you suddenly need exactly that one funny little piece you almost threw away. So I do not study history looking for answers. I study it looking for parts.
That is a completely different way of thinking. When I was younger, I honestly thought history was just a bunch of stories about people who were already gone. Kings did king things. Queens did queen things. Somebody invented something. Somebody started a war. Somebody ended one. Then everybody wrote books about it and gave children tests that made them remember dates they would forget three days later. I never understood why everyone was so excited about memorizing when a battle happened if nobody explained why anyone was there in the first place. My brain always wanted the "why." It still does. That is probably why puzzles became so much fun for me. Every puzzle has a reason for existing. Somebody built it. Somebody hid something. Somebody wanted another person to find it, or maybe they wanted to make sure nobody ever did. There was always a reason. And if there was a reason, then there was a person behind it. Once I started looking for the person instead of the puzzle, solving them became so much easier. History works exactly the same way. Do not ask, "What happened?"
Ask, "Why did they think this was the right thing to do?"
Those are two completely different questions. The first one gives you facts. The second one gives you understanding.
I would rather have understanding every single time.
You see, facts are wonderful little things, but they are also stubborn. They just sit there. They never explain themselves. A fact says someone crossed a river. Wonderful. Why? Were they escaping? Hunting? Looking for family? Invading another village? Fishing? The fact never tells you that by itself. The reason tells you everything. That is why I think people sometimes accidentally study the outside of history instead of the inside of it. They memorize events instead of motivations. But motivations are where the real treasure is hiding. Those are the little jewels my mom would have wanted me to find.
Let me give you a very easy example. Suppose someone lies.
History says they lied. Simple enough. But why?
Did they lie because they were selfish?
Did they lie because they were frightened?
Did they lie to save someone's life?
Did they lie because they thought it was the only way to protect someone they loved?
Those are four completely different people, even though history writes exactly the same sentence about all of them.
That is why actions fool us.
Reasons rarely do.
So if someone tells me history predicts the future because someone lied before, I shake my head a little. No, history does not tell me they will lie again. History tells me to look deeper. Maybe what repeats is not the lie. Maybe what repeats is the protection. Maybe every decision they make is built around protecting others. If that is true, then someday they may tell the truth because that truth protects someone.
The action changes. The reason stays the same.
That is what I look for.
Reasons.
Not events.
I think that is one of the biggest differences between solving puzzles and simply answering questions. Anyone can answer a question if they already know the answer. Puzzle solvers have to discover why the answer exists in the first place. That takes curiosity. It takes patience. Sometimes it takes admitting you have absolutely no idea what you are looking at. Believe me, I have had those moments. I have stared at things until my eyes hurt and finally said, "Well... that certainly is something." Then I usually get tea, come back later, and suddenly my brain decides to cooperate. I wish it would do that the first time. It almost never does.
So do not feel bad if the answer does not come right away. Sometimes your mind is still putting pieces together while you are busy doing something else. Mine does that all the time. I have scared poor Karl more than once by suddenly yelling, "I GOT IT!" halfway through dinner. Then I have to explain I was not talking about the mashed potatoes.
The more I thought about history, the more I realized it behaves exactly like that. You keep collecting little pieces without even realizing it. One story teaches you about fear. Another teaches you about courage. Another teaches you about greed. Another teaches you about sacrifice. None of them tells you the future by themselves.
But together they start teaching you how people think.
Now that... that is useful.
Because people may change their actions, but they usually keep solving problems in ways that feel comfortable to them.
One person rushes forward.
Another waits.
Another asks questions.
Another runs away.
Another laughs because they are nervous.
Another becomes completely silent.
Those are patterns.
Not chains.
Patterns.
Patterns leave room for choice.
Chains do not.
That is why I never like telling people they are trapped by their past. I think that is one of the saddest things we can tell another person. We all have a past. Every one of us has made choices we wish we could take back. Every one of us has believed something that later turned out to be wrong. If history completely controlled us, none of us would ever become better than we were yesterday.
Thankfully, that is not how people work.
We learn.
We grow.
Sometimes we stumble backward a little first, because Apparently life enjoys reminding us we are still human. I know mine certainly has. But even those stumbles teach us something if we let them.
So perhaps history is not really about remembering.
Perhaps it is about understanding.
That feels much more useful to me.
When I look at old puzzles, old traps, old mysteries, or even old arguments between people, I no longer ask, "Who won?"
I ask, "What made them believe they had to play the game that way?"
That question has solved far more puzzles for me than memorizing dates ever could.
Now I know some history teachers are probably throwing chalk at this page right now. Please do not. I actually like history. Honest. I simply like the people hiding inside it even more than the events themselves.
Because every invention started with a problem.
Every war started with a belief.
Every friendship started with a meeting.
Every family started with a choice.
Every act of kindness started with a thought.
That is history.
Not the dates.
The thoughts.
That is what survives.
And when you begin looking at history that way, something wonderful happens. It stops being a dusty shelf full of old books and starts becoming a conversation with people who lived before you did. Suddenly they are not names anymore. They become puzzle builders, dreamers, inventors, parents, children, frightened people, brave people, stubborn people, and hopeful people. They become... us. Just wearing different clothes and living in a different time.
So no, my little sleuths, I still do not believe history predicts the future. Life is far too wonderfully messy for that. People surprise us every single day. They become kinder. They become wiser. Sometimes they become more foolish too. That is part of being human. But I do believe history can help us understand the present. And if we truly understand the present, we sometimes begin to see where today's choices might lead tomorrow. Not because tomorrow is written.
Because today's thinking usually grows into tomorrow's choices.
That is a very different thing. So if you ever find yourself reading about the past, do not rush through it looking for dates and battles and names to memorize. Sit with it for a little while. Ask why. Ask what frightened them. Ask what they hoped for. Ask what they were trying to protect. Ask what they loved enough to risk everything for. Somewhere inside those answers is the real lesson history has been trying to tell us all along.
Find the reason, and you find the pattern. Find the pattern, and you begin to see the shape of the puzzle. And once you can finally see the shape... well, my hopeful little sleuths... you are already halfway to solving it. Have a time next time you read anything and discover why? Toodles...
