Imagining More Complexly

I have lately been spending a lot of time on YouTube, watching Crash Course videos, specifically the ones about World History. One recurring "theme" (if one may call it that) is the idea that most of the conflicts in history have stemmed from a failure to imagine the world more complexly.

It has never been easier to stay awake during history class than when I'm attending this one.

Although I have heard John Green talk about this in videos in which he discuss his books and in his vlog exchanges with his brother Hank, I have never really sat down and pondered it until today. (Wow, ponder!)

 

 

 

Here's New York times bestselling author John Green with some excellent advice.

 
For some reason, after watching today's video, I didn't stop and think about World War II or Hitler, or "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters (you'll have to watch it for yourself to understand). No, I remembered instead, my college days.

As is usual, I started reminiscing about my life in UP and the time I spent with friends just sitting quietly beneath trees, watching people walk by or laughing out loud while trying to eat standing up in a crowd of people. (Kilometric sentence, anyone?)

Ah, college me. Younger, healthier, and yes, slimmer. (Also: better looking hair.)

When I remember college I often tend to see it in my mind's eye as a rosy period in my life and I am filled with the desire to go find Doctor Who and ask him to take me back so I can relive those days. (Am I nerdy enough for you yet?) And then it hit me. When I do so I fail to imagine --remembering is a form of imagining after all ---the past more complexly. Because I am now so far removed from my college days (it has been four years after all), the tendency now is to not remember how scared I was, or how I panicked at every deadline, or how frustrated I got every time I was faced with inconsiderate professors, insanely difficult requirements and my own limited financial resources. It's as if the years had given me some sort of tunnel vision, and the things that made me so eager to get out of college had been cast to the side, into the darkness.


I realized that most of the conflicts I was involved in stemmed from a failure to imagine---the "other", the past, and the world in general---more complexly. If I'd remembered all of the negative things I'd felt and experienced during my time at the university along with the happy ones, would I really have felt so bad about the present so easily? If I had not put other people in boxes and had tried to see them as I see myself, how many more friends would I have made?

Huh. From online world history lessons given by a young adult fiction author to nostalgia to self-realization. Not bad.