World History - Lesson 10

Jaron Summers

A history book for

Becki, 9, a distant cousin in Canada.

This book is almost finished. Just one more chapter to go. Thank you for letting me ramble on and share some of my thoughts with one of the most important people on earth. You.

As you have probably guessed this book isn’t like most history books.

There are almost no dates.

The only dates worth remembering are your birthday and those of your family and friends.

Birthdays are great when you are young but when you grow up they just remind you how much fun it was to be young.

So enjoy your birthdays now and then later you’ll have something to look back at and smile about.

The reason I wrote a history book of the world for you was so that you could see how you are connected to the world.

That’s about the only use history is. To see how we each fit into it. All the rest is kind of boring. I hope I have left the boring parts out of this book.

Here are some boring dates – 1066, 1215, 1492.

The reason they are boring is that most of the stuff about those dates is not what really happened just what people think happened or worse what people, who have an ax to grind, want you to think about those dates.

This brings us to:

Magic

Music

Medicine

You might wonder how I came up with those three words.

No idea.

I wrote down a bunch of words that I thought would be fun to write to you about. Now those three are left over. Writers have funny minds, don’t they?

And, now that I think about it, it seems to me that Magic, Music and Medicine are part of every culture that ever existed. I can’t think of a time in history when those three words weren’t around.

Maybe you can think of a time when peoples’ lives didn’t deal with Magic, Music and Medicine. Maybe the people used different terms but it all boiled down to those three words.

You remember what I said about religion? That if any religious leader told you God wanted you to harm someone, that religious leader deserved a good spanking.

I think it’s the same way with Magic, Music and Medicine.

Take Medicine. Ever hear of Hippocrates? He was a famous Greek physician and he said to all his pupils: “First do no harm.” Today doctors swear an oath to Hippocrates. It’s longer than that but basically they promise not to harm their patients.

So when you need a doctor and some help with medicine, find one who won’t harm you. And how do you do that? Well, see who the other doctors go to when they are sick. That would be a good start.

Music. Most of it’s good. Singing and dancing is fun and makes you feel alive and connected. Or it should. But just like religion, don’t pay any attention to anyone who sings songs (or raps) with a message that has to do with hurting someone.

People who encourage others through music (or anything else) to hurt each other need to be spanked. Singers who tell you to hurt someone else are not very grown-up. No wonder they claim to live in cribs.

Magic. Magic is an illusion. (In many ways it’s just like old history books. Fake stuff.)

What is the biggest illusion in today’s world? It’s TV and movies.

You can learn a lot from TV and movies.

But once again, if the movie stars and directors and writers make something that suggests you hurt someone, or try to persuade you to harm people, DON’T fall for it.

If you are at a movie, walk out and ask for you money back. Turn to another TV channel. You’re in charge.

Stand up for what you believe in.

A nine-year-old girl can strike terror into the biggest, toughest theater owner in the world if she starts yelling for her money back and threatening to call "the authorities."

Magic

Medicine

Music

Those three things run through every culture that existed – from cavemen to spacemen.

You can learn a lot about history by seeing how different people regard those three things.

You assignment for this chapter is to write down the best thing in today’s world about those three words: Magic, Medicine, Music.

Some people will tell you that in our world there is no such thing as magic. Those same people say magic is just superstition.

Ha, ha–joke's on them.

They have no idea what it feels like to watch a sunrise or a panda bear.

It’s your job to wake them up.

P.S. Here’s a story I wrote about magic, medicine and music (and money):

The Inside Poop

Of the Rich and Famous

Mr. Richard (Rich) Twit, the world’s wealthiest man arose after a long and sleepless night. Several of his zillion dollar mergers were not going well. Mrs. Twit had a frightful headache and there had been no fun for Mr. Twit for some weeks now.

The government was threatening yet another suit to bust up Mr. Twit’s many, many conglomerates.

Mr. Twit slogged into his world-famous bathroom that had been featured seven times in Architectural Digest to relieve himself and as he walked across the warm marble, heated to body temperature, he stubbed his big toe on a gold door stop.

He screamed curses and twelve servants and three body guards galloped to his aid.

Meanwhile, the world’s poorest man, Mr. Henry (Happy) Twit, got up in his grass hut in Tahiti and smiled at his wife. They had laughed and danced and sang all night long to the sounds of the crashing surf.

Happy Twit stood in the doorway of his grass hut and looked out the beautiful blue Pacific. His seven children were already up, picking fruit for breakfast. Happy Twit had six cents to his name.

Happy Twit walked along the sandy beach and beside an old palm tree spent a pleasant five minutes taking care of his personal duties.

Meanwhile the world’s richest man sat on his throne, praying that he could relieve himself. What added to his agitation was the south wall of his 7,000 square foot bathroom.

That wall was a giant, fifty-five million dollar flat screen TV and on it Rich Twit had programmed a peaceful seascape of the Pacific with big white fluffy clouds. It was a wonderful piece of magic, a calming illusion. When it worked.

Instead of a seascape, the ocean looked like the whirling innards of a spin-dry washing machine. Not good for the relaxation that the doctors said Rich Twit needed so he could empty his bowels.

Rich Twit screamed for electricians and computer programmers and video engineers.

Within seven hours they found that a nine cent transistor had been damaged when the world’s richest man had struck the wall with his fist the previous day because he was frustrated that the world’s most powerful laxatives gave him minimal relief.

Meanwhile, the world’s poorest man was swimming and laughing and dancing and singing with his children and grandchildren when a helicopter landed.

Out of the helicopter appeared a Fedex Delivery Man. He presented the world’s poorest man with a box, the size of a phone booth.

Happy Twit opened the box and found a dozen computers and a gadget that made electricity to run them. There was also a satellite radio and some other things to access the internet.

These were all gifts from Twit Enterprises. The richest man in the world had researched his genealogy (a note said) and discovered that he had some distant relatives in Tahiti. The gifts were so Happy Twit and his children could live better lives.

Happy Twit was delighted.

Here is what he did: He used the computers for boat anchors.

He used the telephone equipment for a counter weight on a rope so his kids could have a good swing.

That left the box. From that he made a wonderful little covered outhouse so he could keep dry during the rains and still watch the ocean playing tag with itself.

The following morning, the world’s poorest man walked to his new outhouse. He was singing. And he did a little dance step.

Half way around the world, a team of surgeons wheeled the world’s richest man into an operating theater, located in the world-famous, billion dollar Twit International Hospital, so the specialists could split him open and start working on his impacted bowls.