To this day, I still have a problem answering the question "where are you from?"
Having grown up in a variety of states all over the country, the last time I saw Oregon , the state in which I was born, I was far to young to remember it. Over 30 years have passed , and i have still yet to form a tangible image of where I come from.
You see, history is a tricky concept, especially for those of us with a lacking sense of origin, but for me it was this same confusion and curiosity that drove me to read every book I could get my hands on, and to devote almost a decade of my life to the study of the birth and decline of various civilizations , cultures , and revolutions .
        With a family tree that does not extend past the tangled branches of closed adoptions and an absentee grandfather who I met once, defining a larger concept of personal history was a crucial aspect of building a foundational understanding of the world around me. The son of two people who have devoted their lives to both helping people and attempting to attain a better understanding of the human condition, my own journey would be both similar in its intent and divergent in its execution. While they had chosen a route that was defined by its  introspection and the intricacies of human behavior and emotion, mine focused on a broader understanding of the trends , cycles, and emergence of time and the written record there of.  Constantly searching for understanding, meaning & purpose , instead much of what I found was a path that just kept going.
Like most college students, my first year was characterized by an abundant thirst for knowledge that came paired with an understanding, that despite my age and the relatively  short time that I had spent at this institution of higher learning, I did indeed know just about everything. Guided by a youthful exuberance, this slightly informed form of ignorance is what cultivated the passionate discussions and arguments that characterize so much of that period. Hell bent on proving each other wrong, we had not yet learned the value of perspective, and it showed. With each passing semester this arrogant approach to knowledge and the world was dialed back in favor of an  awareness of just how much I did not know. At first a terrifying concept, I later found comfort in this reality, as I knew I was not alone.
       For me, the study of history has been a way to understand the world to which I belong. While others have used psychology , sociology , biology , philosophy,and theology to achieve this same ends, learning from the examples and mistakes of those that came before me , always seemed logical. Quickly approaching the completion of a substantial portion of my formal education , the question of what comes next is one that rarely leaves my consciousness . While most naturally assume that I will go on to teach, being one of the few fields that openly expresses the importance of history, the skills in research, analysis , identifying  perspective & understanding of the world are easily transferable to any number of career paths. Having built a suitable foundation on which to stand and lost and rebuilt my faith in humanity countless times, the ways in which history has prepared me for the world are seeming endless. With my arrogant  ignorance having  been replaced by a peaceful awareness there of, now more than ever I begin each day eager to learn , build and create. While I am still question where I come from, where I am going becomes clearer every day.

-Joshua Genius