Have you ever questioned if your past is real? I'm not talking about the easy stuff like, "That was a really dumb thing to say." I'm talking about what is indisputable in our history. Is the narration I know authentic? Were the celebrated heroes of my childhood genuine or creations of legends as dubious as a giant lumberjack and his baby blue ox? Are the historical tales taught in my school days factual? It is not just about getting the facts right. We gain deeper insights into our national character when our history is re-examined.

We are justified to object to the ranting denials of the Holocaust by the president of Iran because of what the students of his country will hear. Are they believers of the unreal? In Middle Eastern countries, textbooks don't include maps with Israel. A whole country and its founding story are not available to millions of children. How can governments of this critical area of the world talk if they don't admit to their mere existence?

In our own American history, what really happened seems to evolve either with new information, old opinions rejected or different theories tested. The dates and names don't change, but understanding personal circumstances, learning the human frailties and foibles, uncovering pivotal moments of serendipity, and relationships between distant events may completely turn our assumptions upside down. If not careful, we unconsciously seek out information that fits our preformed prejudices. Historical events didn't disappear with our selection of which ones to believe; they evolved or mutated. Justification of our bias is a natural instinct, because it is painful to be wrong. An example is the subjugation of our own Western lands. Was it a noble quest to expand civilization to the savages, or was it a question of civilization savagely expanding subjugation to the noble people to take their lands? They say the victors write the history; therefore, they choose the order of words and mold the biases.

Of further interest is the personal chronicle that we write for ourselves. Are the private stories recorded by us in our emotional history about us true? Our memories are our journal that we record every day. Do we scribe our own stories as the victor or as the victim? What do we read into our past, and what bias do we bring to the present? Moods and memory are intimately connected. Therefore, when we write to our mental disc, we file the feelings with it. So, unlike the objectivity that one is supposed to bring to the reviewing of political history, it is impossible to read our own memories without an associated feeling of worth or worthlessness.