Proust #29 Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Do you know what Proust’s answer to this question was? He simply said, “I am not educated enough.”
I’ve been thinking about how to respond to this question for a couple of days now. I knew it was coming and I knew it would be tough. I tried to rely on my memory (ha!) first. Which historical figures could I even remember? Lots of world leaders, famous actors, famous authors…but do I identify with Napoleon or Elizabeth the First or Joan of Arc? Not really.
I cannot not have an answer for this though, so I turned to the biggest know-it-all…Google. I narrowed the field by looking for historical women. Lady Bird Johnson? Nope. Harriet Tubman? Nope. Marie Curie? Nope. Wow, this was getting harder. I narrowed my search to Canadian women. Surely if I kept it to a 300 year window I’d find at least one woman with whom I could identify! How about the painter Emily Carr? Maayyybee? Kit Coleman, Irish-Canadian news columnist and the world’s first female war correspondent? Again, maybe. If you’ve never heard of her, Google her, she’s fascinating! Helen Harrison-Bristol? Now here’s an interesting lady! She took flying lessons in secret because she wanted to be a pilot so badly. She was the first female Canadian air transport pilot and flew during World War 2. Do I identify with her? Not really.
So if I can’t identify with their deeds, what can I identify with? Well, I had a thought. Why do we know anything at all about ANY of these women? One very simple thing – they all DID something. No one becomes famous for sitting on their duff, except maybe the Kardashians. (What do they do anyway?)
Think about it. Have you ever read a biography for someone who became well-known for doing nothing? Each one of the women I researched was in the history books because they dared to do what they felt they had to do, in spite of adversity.
Emily Carr was so passionate about the landscapes of Coastal British Columbia that she stood in the face of convention to pursue her passion.
“I glory in our wonderful west and I hope to leave behind me some of the relics of its first primitive greatness. These things should be to us Canadians what the ancient Briton’s relics are to the English. Only a few more years and they will be gone forever into silent nothingness and I would gather my collection together before they are forever past.” ~ Emily Carr
Kit Coleman refused to keep writing columns about housekeeping and fashion, insisting that women, too, were interested in politics, religion, and science. Her publishers sent her to Cuba to cover the Spanish-American war in 1898, thinking they would capitalize on the scandal of sending a female correspondent. She went and accomplished more than anyone dreamed.
“She was authorized to accompany American troops, but was vehemently opposed by other correspondents and the military authorities…Blake persevered and arrived in Cuba in July 1898, just before the end of the war. Her accounts of the aftermath of the war and of its human casualties were the peak of her journalism career and made her famous.” (taken from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_Coleman Nov.2/2015)
Helen Harrison-Bristol was so outstanding as a pilot, the Royal South African Air Force recruited her as an instructor and she trained reserve air force pilots. Her accomplishments are impressive.
Each of these women became known for their courage and determination, for standing up for what they believed in, and for daring to do something.
Maybe I do identify with these historical figures. Maybe I can find something of them in myself. At the very least, which isn’t ‘least’ at all, I am inspired to live my life actively, pursuing my dreams, and getting off the sidelines.
Get off the couch, stop staying “I could never do that”, try and keep trying. Who knows, someday someone might Google a list of historical figures and see your name, but not if you don’t do something.
