Hi. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Stephen Kirschner. I'm 26 years old and currently living in Manhattan, but working in Jersey City at a restaurant as a food runner.
Although I originally went to culinary school (The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park NY) with the intention of becoming a chef, my life has taken a different path. After about 4 years of working in kitchens, I came to realize that it wasn't my calling. In the meantime, I developed a passion for politics and economics, and continued to study history, which I have always loved. Much of my commuting time, as well as some time on my days off is committed to reading and watching documentaries. My NOOK currently holds around 200 books, the vast majority of them being history and politic related.
I'm in the process of trying to go back to school to study History and Political Science... My strongest interest at this point would be to ultimately teach. Although I'm very interested in politics, I'm not too keen on participating directly, due to the corruption in our current system, and just the nature of politics in general. Therefore, I feel that it's important to educate people on how the world works, the personal agendas behind many of the political decisions being made, and the search for where the truth ultimately lies.
At the advice of a few friends/coworkers, I decided to start writing a series of blogs, based mainly on current events, but with many ties to historical events, in order to demonstrate how relevant history is in today's world. I'm personally aggravated everytime I hear things along the lines of: "Oh, that happened a long time ago.", "It doesn't matter anymore." "Things were different back then.", "Who cares about history? I'm living right now!"... and so on. History to me, seems to be an endless cycle of many of the same mistakes. As George Santayana (some have attributed this to Edmund Burke too) so famously said: "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
To me, it's really astounding how true Santayana's quote really is. It can even be reduced to a personal level: you look back on previous events in your life, as well as things that you were told as guidance for future decision making. I don't know how many times I have heard "I wish I could be (however many years younger), but wish I knew what I know now." Can't the same be said of mankind in general? I personally believe, that if many more knew history well and learned from it AND applied it to current events and decisions, mankind would progress/have progressed VASTLY farther than it already has.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I will have a few more blogs up soon.
-Steve
