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I feel far away from history. I feel young and yet the vintage come-backs are those that I grew up in, around, and with. I feel as if the last ten years have taken me captive; placed me into tunnel vision where nothing exists beyond the current state of affairs. I feel as if digital has consumed me whole with no room for what was, only space for what will be.

I remember when I was connected to history: 18th century British literature, the intimate details of The French Revolution, Seurat and Picasso and Manet, the sixties, Josephine Baker, The Terracotta Army of, Rococo, Prohibition, Hemingway and Joyce and Nabokov.

I felt the ripples of the past painting my picture of today and yet, my references feel farther away than ever. I have found myself in a place where creativity lacks, where homogeny amongst aesthetic preferences run rampant, in which virality is worth chasing, where a fleeting trend holds more merit and weight than a significant reference of the past that fundamentally altered culture, like a shockwave felt around the world now dismissed and forgotten.

We are all most likely in a state between numb and apathetic as thousands of images scroll through our subconscious daily.

How can we know what we like if we leave our imagination up to the scroll?

I wonder which history my daughter will love – which decades, periods, or artistic movements. I wonder if the nineties will be where it starts for her or if she will travel back in time – as I often did – all the way to the 1700s. I wonder if the rotation of classics will be updated and replaced. I wonder if real life will seep through her understanding of what makes great art or if she will visit Versailles through VR goggles (if so, I shall take her there immediately so she understands that in person can never match or duel virtual).

Or perhaps we have simply forgotten that references live outside of Pinterest. That our streets are filled with little fleeting moments and hand-carved memories that can inspire.

Perhaps I have simply forgotten that the museums, in fact, are still open.

This is not a noble resistance to the technological age – no, I welcome innovation and super-speed advancements that are the wondrous product of human imagination and genius and work. I never wish to stop the flow of such advancements.

However, this is a call to not forget. This is a call to remember. This is a call to know that within our digital landscape lies another: a very real, historically built other – a land of artists and writers and musicians and architects and philosophers and intellectuals and poets.

That land exists too.

I feel far away from history – and yet, all I really need to do, is connect back within. For nothing is truly built without years of foundation. And it is in the years of foundation that we find our creative references.

And so that is where I will go. That is where I will visit. That is what I will stay connected to.

For as we forage forward, we must also revere where we once came from.

***Featured Photos: Pablo Picasso