Periodization.

 

This will be a short post because I am a little behind schedule this morning because I had to shave my head this morning because even though I usually do that on Sundays, I couldn’t yesterday because I was working.

That’s life, right? Because … because … because …

Just a long series of interrelated events. I’ve always felt that the way Americans learn history in school is kind of misleading because the study of history relies on a concept called “Periodization” which basically just means that we slice history up into nice little clean segmented pieces. You have the fall of the Western Roman Empire and then that chapter ends and a new one starts called “The Dark Ages” and then that chapter ends and you have one called “The Renaissance” and then that chapter ends and you have one called “The Enlightenment” and then that chapter ends … and so on, even though that’s not really how any of that happened. It erases the messy and overlapping parts about because and because and because. By the way, the Dark Ages never happened and the Renaissance also kind of didn’t, but we don’t have time for that.

Anyway, later today I will get my second Covid vaccination and I’m very excited about it. A couple of weeks from now I will (hopefully) be at the beginning of a slightly new version of this life. It will take awhile before the difference will be noticeable, because I’m still going to mostly social distance and will still wear a mask because I am trying to be a responsible person because I think that in a society we do actually have a responsibility to one another because if that isn’t true, then what are we even doing?

Soon I will be able to take a deep breath for the first time in 13 months because I will be vaccinated. Soon you will be able to say that too because you will be vaccinated. And then we will all be able to take a deep breath and look around at the world we return to and maybe we will do a better job with it this time … because we came so close to losing it.

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