I don't know how it started but lately I've been really into history, especially the history of Ottawa and Canada, though the Simon Schama's History of Britain on the BBC was very interesting.

After seeing all of that history on TV and reading about history on sites like Wikipedia, I find the most amazing thing is how far we've come as a (worldwide) civilization over the last few hundred years. There's a long way to go before we are any kind of Star Trek Utopia, but seeing the kind of progress we've had gives me a lot of hope for the future of mankind. Even the relatively small glancing view of history that I've had over the past year can have that impact.

Children of the generations X and Y live in a new reality: where so many things are taken for granted -- like freedom -- it's hard to imagine them not being there. We've never truly had our freedom threatened in our lifetimes. The upside is that the new reality allows us to concentrate on solving new problems to get to that Star Trek Utopia, like helping other countries instead of our own. The downside is that it's easy to forget to appreciate our past.

On this Remembrance Day, I try to think of a world where we lost World War I or II. I think of a world without democracies or the freedom to say what we think. I think of a world where ethnic or religious cleansing was seen as beneficial and heathly to a society. I think of a world without the Internet and all of the freedoms it affords. I think of a world where North America was defeated and we are under the control of some external superpower. I think of a world where our grandfathers didn't make it back from the front lines because they fought to the bitter end for our freedom -- and lost. I think of a world destroyed by nuclear war. Where would we be? Imagine how much different your life would be. It would probably be many times worse than you can imagine. You may not even have been born.

I'd like to thank everyone that's had a role in giving me the freedom I have today. I will do my best to become less ignorant of the significance of their sacrifices by paying attention to history. I can never truly appeciate what it must have felt like to be in their positions -- but I can try to, and that's the least I can do.

Today I'm proud to be a world citizen, not just Canadian. There are problems in this world, yes, but I think things have turned out alright so far under the circumstances. The world corrected itself and restored balance. It's in a relatively good place. I try to imagine where we could be and it's frightening to think how close we were to losing everything.