Why I love Pan Historia

by Mubarakin Ui Niall

As a child I looked upon my world as a world of wonders. Surrounded by all that there is, and questions. Why is the sky blue? How does the flower transform itself into the fruit? When did we come here? Who was here before us? What will come next?

Trips to the dusty halls of the museums filled me with wonder at the dinosaur bones of antiquity, the marvels of China, the empires of the Egyptians, of the Romans, the changes of the renaissance, the rise of the Age of Reason, and other progressions of society. In libraries I found tales and stories of other ancients, the Babylonians, Sumerians, the cultures of the Hindus valley, the people who populated the frozen northland, tales of the Greek gods and of heroes. As I grew, so too grew the vast array of man’s past.

As a child I was presented with the image of the earth, viewed from space, a single planet. Pan Gaia. A Unity.

In schools we all seek answers, and I found myself amongst like-minded friends eagerly pursuing these lofty questions. As personal evolution would have I took up the mantle of poet, pursuing the history of the world through verse and myth. A collective group of friends who would gather to talk (argue?) about the questions, the answers, and the possible alternatives. We would gather at kitchen tables, in parks, in coffee shops and discuss away the hours. All too soon, the calls to employment, the demands of family, and financial stability took more time and the pursuits of questions slowly, grudgingly, were set aside, though never did I cease to question and to wonder, nor they, but we were in that time dispersed.

What time spend in pursuit alone, the drafty silences of library shelves, the missing warmth being the ability to confer, to discuss, to be community in quest of similar goals and pursuits.

Then, presented before me, another view of the earth, this time not from space, but from the core of wire, the speeding electrons, a single unified world held together by thin strands of metallic and fiber optic webs. The Internet. Pan Gaia.

My voice become a global voice, my ears to hear the world, and a global community. The histories of the world, all the world, complete with its questions, its theories, errors and correction, Pan Historia. The mind’s eye seeing the blue marble from space; the truth of unity.

Why do I love Pan Historia? Simply put, it is old friends, new friends, and a world of wonders yet to be explored.

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