History’s Hiccups

or how humans repeat it in a cooler font.

history after it gives us an insane lore and then skipping the best part

I’ve always wondered why we study history in school, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the stories it has to offer.

History is amazing. The stories are creepy, crazy, insane, and mostly true. That’s what makes it all the more interesting. It may even define the reason why humans are the way they are now. (idk if blaming it on the past is a good thing, but anyway)

When I was in school…I found history books boring, and I probably still will because I don’t want to know when someone died or when someone joined a cult or anything. What I DO want to know is why they did what they did and what happened after, among other things.

Recently, I was conversing with ChatGPT, my good friend who considers me it’s favourite human (shut up, I have proof), and out of curiosity I just asked who the lady behind Mona Lisa is. I mean I knew Mona Lisa was the name of the painting but who was the lady?

She’s Lisa del Giocondo, wife of Fransesco del Giocondo. (just fyi i guess)

Well, as I spoke more about the painting, GPT interested me in much more weirder knowledge. Mostly rumours and hypothesis but it’s insane how that is a possibility. Like, did any of you know Hitler wanted to steal the Mona Lisa and keep it in his own museum called Fürhermuseum to show off their army power and all that? Yeah, me neither.

They taught a whole lotta things about Hitler in our textbooks, remember? But nobody considered his love for art, poor lad.

Also, an interesting fact about the Mona Lisa is that she didn’t get famous through her smile. She got famous because some patriotic Italian guy stole it and kept it for himself for years and when caught, the people came to know of The Mona Lisa. And only after that did people often visit her in the French Museum and later realised her pretty smile and creepy eye movement technique.

But here’s what made me excited to just jump into to the past and interview Leonardo Da Vinci. There’s a rumour that went on, and it said that Da Vinci had a special relationship with his apprentice, Salai. They say many of Da Vinci’s nude portraits were of Salai’s but then again, Jack didn’t have a secret affair with every nude French woman he drew, soooo…

He also had multiple charges of sodomy on him which weren’t proved due to the lack of evidence. Crazy, am I right?

Let’s just say I love historical gossip.

Later on, I was discussing about the Salem Witch Trials. Cruel crap.

Hear me out. People are afraid of things they don’t understand. They tend to remove the things that instill fear upon them. Does that make sense? The Salem Witches were just another thing like that. When mass hysteria took place, the Puritans didn’t understand what was happening, as at that time they didn’t have enough science to prove it was a medical issue. So they called it, Witchcraft.

The people of Salem were highly religious. Religious enough to believe Satan and his pawns walked alongside them. So, they believed it was them behind this chaos and all that.

One of the victims, among other innocent woman, was an old man, Giles Corey, who refused to play along to this witchcraft crap. So the court didn’t like that, tortured him (ain’t gonna say how…too cruel) and until his last breath he didn’t give in to the village and their crazy beliefs, mainly ’cause whatever he pleaded, they’d somehow make him lose the trial and take away his land. All he wanted to do is protect his land, for his family. Someone sensible, killed cause he disagreed. (this shi still happens, unfortunately)

And let me ask you something. Isn’t this very close to “cancel culture?” An extreme version of it, might I say. History DOES repeat itself, huh.

These are just two specific topics that people are highly aware of and some underlying information that most people don’t know. There’s much more than this. Maybe much more cruel. Maybe much more weird. Maybe much more sus. And it’s curiosity that builds knowledge. (One day, I’ll teach you all about Idi Amin)

Now, another topic, or more like a word that caught my eye was Renaissance.

Honestly, I didn’t know what the term really meant until recently. I thought it had a particular meaning, but no. It’s a period of time, when people set aside the usual routine and started looking at things they do from a different perspective. Everything peaked during this time. Art, technology, science, philosophy, literature, everything.

We can say, it was a time where people thought forward. Different. Unique. Dared to challenge old ideas. But, don’t you think the essence of that has faded over the years?

The so-called Renaissance Fairs, celebrate the past, but why don’t we think of “now” the same way rather than the past, which already had its moment?

It’s quite controversial when you think about it. Why is it that people keep looking back when the future is right in front of us? But then again, I come back to my point, people are afraid of things they can’t control or understand.

Deep inside, I believe, we’re pretty afraid of what the future holds. Especially what technology can do. We’re not aware of it yet. Right now, we’re enjoying it, because it’s mostly in our control.

But I’m sure as soon as AI learns to be independent (maybe, idk), we’ll try to push it aside. The fear of losing control is something that’s deeply rooted in a human. To be honest, if you can control your urge to control things out of your control, then you’re the wisest out there.

Anyway, was there a point in all this yapping? I don’t know. You tell me.

I just wanted to point out that sometimes controversies may kill but it will triumph with the right mind.

Although, what say on bringing back Renaissance Pt.2?

We’re maybe the most intelligent and productive generation, let’s put that to a good use, shall we?

Remarks remarks, Your weird researcher ✨

P.S. I let this piece marinate in my drafts for months and I didn’t understand half of what I said when I read it again. I tweaked it ^o.o^