The verified oldest person alive today is Misao Okawa, a Japanese woman born on the 5^th of March, 1898. The 115 years she has lived have been full of dramatic changes, revolutionary new ideas, incredible new discoveries and inventions, catastrophic tragedies and conflicts, wonderful triumphs and achievements. She has lived through the First and Second World Wars, read about the sinking of the Titanic, was alive during the first flight of the airplane, and likely witnessed the first landing on the Moon. The memories of the entire last century belong to her. When she dies, she will take with her all of these experiences. There will be no more memories of the times before 1898. The humans of that era will all be gone; the entire collective human experience of living during those years will have been extinguished.

Consider every person you have met in your life. Every single one of them will be gone within 150 years. All of their memories, all of their experiences, all of their dreams, thoughts, hopes, and worries will be nothing more than the memories of those who survive them. One of the most powerful developments in the course of human progress has thus been the creation of history. The ability to recall and retell the experiences of the past, which would otherwise have been lost, allows us in our current time to understand why and how the humans who preceded us did what they did. It allows us to understand the world as it was before any human alive today came into being. History is a running record of the generations of humans who have been born into the world, changed it, and then left it in death. Although everyone in the distant past has long since been gone, and although everyone alive today will one day be gone as well, history allows our memories, our experiences, our dreams, our thoughts, our hopes, and our worries to live on forever.

This is how our world works. This is how history is made. This is how our civilization develops. We, the humans of the early 21^st century, are along for a ride through a lifetime of events, happenings, and changes. It is our time and turn to transform and develop the world, just like those who have come before us. We live in a society and a civilization which owes its existence and its present form to the past generations of humans which have developed it. They looked towards the mysterious future as we do today, and tried to shape their world and their time in anticipation of it. They ventured through a quest called life, a journey of growth, change, and then death. Today, we ourselves begin this journey.

We must remember our place in history. We live in an era of progress and modernity, of rapid change and development. 7 billion humans, more than at any point in the past, inhabit this Earth today, preparing to leave their mark on it. Even still, the humans of today are no different, and no more special, than the humans of the past and the humans of the future. We cannot predict our future, and instead march towards it by responding to the current situations, circumstances, and conditions in our world. We build upon the developments of the past, adding our name and our efforts to the growing list of humans who have made a difference. We continue to push our species towards the boundaries of the known, and probe the mysterious unknown. Today we live at the pinnacle of progress and development.

This, however, can be said about the human race at any point in time, both past and present. One day, the humans of the 21^st century will be viewed from the same distant position and the same disconnect that we view the humans of the 1^st and 2^nd centuries. Our technology and our science, now the most modern and advanced that humanity has ever produced, will be as simple and ancient as the basic tools of the first agricultural civilizations.

One day, all of the experiences of the humans of the 21^st century will be as distant and unfamiliar a memory as the experiences of the humans of the 1^st century is to us. Eventually, all of the experiences of life before 1998 will be gone, like how all of those before 1898 will soon be. We thus cannot be arrogant in our belief that we in our present time are special, unique, or privileged. We are no different than the humans of the past, both in the way we have changed the world and in the way we experience the world. We must always remember that, though one day we will all be gone, a new generation of humanity will be born in our place. They will continue to push the boundaries; they will continue to develop our world. Humanity will march forward into the future, and we, the humans of the early 21^st century, will be remembered as its past.

Our lives are driven by choices. We are constantly making decisions in reaction to the world around us, in response to our changing circumstances, and in order to produce a specific vision of the future. These choices range from the minute and routine, such as whether to buy coffee on a specific morning and what type of coffee to buy, to the very significant and profound, such as what career to pursue or who to marry. Almost every facet of our lives has been decided in this way, by a choice we have made at some point for some reason. The story of our lives, like any other tale of history, is told through a retelling of our choices, what prompted them, and what resulted from them.

Every experience we have in our lifetime is the result of us arriving at that point because of the choices we have made in the past. In order to visualize this, we can think of life as a road network. Everybody begins life at the same point, at the same starting location. Though, of course, our circumstances may all be different at birth, we have yet to make the decisions which will make our own life unique, personal, and distinct. The direction that our life will take begins with our first choices. We may quickly leave the road which we began on, and pick up a new route. This new road may be large or small, it may take us in the opposite direction from the road we were on or continue along it in parallel. In the same way, our choices may be large or small, may redefine who we are or simply tweak an aspect. As we continue to drive, we continue to make new turns, take new roads, and return to old ones. Ultimately, we arrive at our final destination. Where this destination is depends on the turns we made, the roads we drove, the routes we took. At some point, our route diverged from someone else’s, and, likewise, our life was different than theirs.

There are major implications which come with the recognition that life is driven by choices. The most profound, to me, is that life in the present depends heavily upon the small choices we make and upon the decisions we made long ago. It is true that some choices define our life more than others. Where we decide to go to school, what career we pursue, where we live, and who we love define us and impact our life in enormous ways. They set the direction in which we will travel, and determine what choices we will have to make along the way. Minor choices too, however, influence this path. Indeed, minor choices can have major implications as we travel further down our road, because each minor choice we make alters the course we take ever so slightly. Added up, these minor choices can take us in the opposite direction than the road we were initially traveling on was headed. To use the analogy of the road network, let’s consider a changing of lanes. The road we are taking is still the same, the direction unchanged. However, by switching our lane, we’ve altered our circumstances on that road. If we have moved over too far, we might miss an exit which we were going to take. Likewise, we might now be able to pick up a new road which was before inaccessible. Over time, these minor changes lead to major decisions which could alter our life forever.

In a similar fashion, choices from long ago can impact our life as much as choices from the recent past or present. If, when driving along our road, we choose to turn onto a new one early on, we have cut ourselves off from all the routes heading the opposite direction. After a long period of driving, we may decide that we really wanted to go the other way, after all. Because of our choice long before to turn, however, we must now backtrack. Similarly, we may decide to take a shortcut, until we realize that the road is closed for construction as we approach the end. We are now forced to make new choices, and take new routes, because of our choice in the past.

The conclusion that we should draw from this recognition is that every choice, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem, carries an enormous influence on our life. Every new choice we make is added in front of the last, setting up the path which our life has taken. The small choices add to this path just as much as the large choices and the direction this path takes early on will profoundly influence where it ends up. It is impossible to predict what impact a choice will have on our life, and how it may set in motion the opportunity for more choices. Still, we must be cognizant that, as we decide our path through life, we are also determining where we will end up, and what experiences we may face along the way.

So far I have only discussed our own choices, and how they impact our own life. It is important to consider, however, how our choices are often made in response to circumstances and situations which are outside of our control. We must often react and respond to the choices that other people have made, and, in turn, they must react and respond to ours. We are at all times caught up in a web of interacting choices. The decisions which we make influence not only our own future, but also influences the decisions which others will face. Our minor choices may present opportunity for major decisions to someone else. For example, a small act of kindness on our part can brighten the day of someone else, who, in a happier mood, decides to carry on the kindness to someone else. This continues until it hits someone who has had a terrible day, so bad, in fact, that they are considering quitting their job and leaving their family. A small, passing gesture of kindness carried along ultimately may be enough to convince that person to hold off on making their major, negative choice. As a similar example, the minor choice of changing lanes on a highway might move you in front of someone in a hurry. They accidentally rear end you as a result. Unfortunately, they were on the way to the airport, so that they could attend a major business meeting which their career depends on. If that person misses their plane, the meeting, and thus loses their job, it is because of the passing choice of changing lanes which you made on the highway one day.

A profound realization is that all of human history can be described as the result of all of our choices interacting. History may be driven by major events and major characters, but the decisions that they made to produce those events were influenced by the decisions made by everyone else. Every choice made in history, be it the routine and insignificant choices of a poor farmer to the decidedly significant choices of the president, were intimately interacting and interwoven. If we consider how our choices impact other peoples’ lives and force them to make choices, we begin to recognize that we all impact and influence the course of history, every day.  As an example: my choice to change lanes on the highway might be of very little significance, but somehow I altered a traffic pattern which, in turn, influenced someone’s driving behavior so that they, in turn, may have arrived at a meeting late, thus causing their boss to miss important information and fail to relay it up the company’s chain of command. This, then, causes the company to make some faulty financial decisions, which then cause a disruption in the economy. This economic disruption impacts the finances of the country, and ultimately forces the government to make cuts in some program. This example may seem a bit extreme, but it is an entirely accurate representation of the way our choices, once made, set up the circumstances and situations which, along the line, can be much larger and significant than our original choice.

History, and life, becomes much more complex and, in my view, interesting when viewed in this way. Recognizing that everyone who shares the road with you is on that road because of a choice they made, which was influenced by another choice before that, reveals how complicated our world and society truly is. Yet it also demonstrates how everyone, despite their differences, is intimately and inseparably connected. We all make choices and our lives are all influenced by these choices. We all live in a world which is run by this web of interacting decisions. No matter how minor an influence it may be, my choices today will somehow set in motion other choices, situations, and circumstances which will influence someone I have never met before, perhaps even someone across the globe. This is constantly happening, and our lives are determined and shaped by the decisions constantly being made by the billions of people who share this world.

We observe the world at a certain moment in time. As we do, we observe a world in function. This world around us runs and functions in a number of ways. The physical world is driven by the forces of nature, which are driven by the underlying ‘mechanisms’ of the universe. The social world is driven by our ways of life, our governments, our philosophies, our religions, etc. These exist after a long series of evolution of thought and development, and continue to evolve as we change them. We observe both of these worlds through various means, both the two most basic and complete investigates are done through science and history. Together, they both search for the answers to how, and in the case of history why, things work the way the work and are the way they are.

Science as a term describes a wide array of studies. Physics, chemistry, and biology as fields are huge. Together, they describe the human understanding of the universe. They try to explain the how the world around us works. Yet ultimately our understanding is limited by the bounds of our intellect and the capabilities of our science. We will never answer questions such as ‘what was before the big bang’ not will we be able to study beyond the event horizon of a black hole, but answers to those questions do exist. This ‘true reality’ is what we try to study to explain. The ‘human’ reality is the result of our science. It is an imperfect attempt to evaluate the world, but scientific thought is the best approach to unlocking the secrets of the universe that humanity has ever developed. Through our queries about how the universe works, we begin to unlock the secrets of its function. By doing so, our species gradually develops an explanation for where and how we fit into existence.

We also try to seek answers to why the world functions as it does in our daily lives. We hold onto philosophies, political views, religions, and other beliefs. We are governed by laws and systems, follow certain people and groups, expect certain things to happen. In order to explain this world, and in order to justify our own view of it, we look to see why it came to be. By looking into the past, and studying the developments which led to our present day, we are able to define why and how the world is as it is. This study is called history. History is the human attempt to recount the developments which have collectively led to the creation of the world we now inhabit. Every single aspect of the societies and civilizations we have constructed are the result of a series of decisions and happenings which occurred in the past. Thus, the only way to understand the present is to try to explain and understand that past. Yet history, like science, is a flawed search. We are limited in what we can observe and explain, and many events and choices of the past have become forever lost to those of us trying to remember them in the future. Though reading historical accounts, oral tales, primary sources, and utilizing archeological evidence helps us build a picture of the past, we will never be able to truly understand all of the choices, conditions, and factors which went into play during those times because most of them were not recorded. Because we are so far removed from these distant places and times, even our understanding of the historical recounting might be flawed because of differences in culture and worldviews. What this means is that history presents us with a limited understanding of a defined set of choices which led to our current time. We will never be able to fully explain or understand that history, but our study of it brings us as close to explaining our world as possible.

Thus, history and science are searches for similar answers, and face similar problems. They answer major questions such as ‘why is the world they way it is’ and ‘how does it work’. Yet because we as humans are limited in the amount of information we possess and the capacity to possess further information, we are limited in the way we are able to explain and understand our world. Science and history will ultimately always be imperfect searches, providing incomplete answers. However, this is a result of the simple nature of our human existence, as opposed to a fundamental flaw in these methods of study. So long as we continue to probe the physical and social world with our science and history, so long as we continue to seek out answers to the questions of why and how, so long as we continue to define, refine, and develop our knowledge of the world, our civilization will come closer to understanding and explaining where, why, and how it fits into the universe.