Meriwether Lewis And Me

 

It's getting to be that time of year when I start thinking about homeschool curriculum for next year.  I think I am mostly continuing on with a lot of the same curriculum we've been using, but there are a few areas where I'll probably change it up a bit.  I'm thinking of switching to a more structured history curriculum for my (soon to be) 3rd grader and 2nd grader, while still adding in the read-alouds we've been doing. I've done something similar with Wyatt's curriculum this year, using America's Story 1 as a spine, and adding in books from the BFB booklist.  Textbooks are thorough, but there is nothing like a living book to bring history alive, and I wanted to make sure I was incorporating plenty of them.  I've mostly been having Wyatt read these extra books on his own, but I was reminded the other day that it's beneficial for me to still read historical living books to him too.

I was reading one of Wyatt's assigned books to him. called "Of Courage Undaunted", about the Lewis and Clark expedition.  He was having trouble getting into it, so I had him read some of it aloud to me, and then I read some of it aloud to him.  I'm so glad I did, because I came across this quote by Meriwether Lewis:

This day I completed my 31st year, and conceived that I had in all human probability now existed about half the period which I am to remain in this sublunary world.  I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very little indeed, to further the happiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the succeeding generation.  I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence and now soarly feel the want of that information which those hours would have gotten me had they been judiciously expended, but since they are past and cannot be recalled, I dash from the gloomy thought, and resolve in the future to redouble my exertions and at least endeavor to promote those two primary objects of human experience, by giving them the aid of that portion of talents which nature and fortune have bestowed on me; or in the future, to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself.

I mentioned in my post a few weeks ago that I have been struggling through having more time for deep thought.  You would think having more time for some good, hard thinking is a good thing, and in the wide view it is, but it's difficult to remember that when I spiral into hashing out a bunch of events from the past, regretting the way I've handled certain situations, or mourning the time I have sometimes wasted.  

Since this has been my frame of mind lately, I was almost relieved to read this quote by one of our nation’s heroes, written when he was pretty close to my age, about how he had experienced and managed similar thoughts.  I had assumed I was struggling through this because of the absence of social media, which I've admittedly used to numb myself from difficult thoughts for years now.  

But maybe it's not so much of a result of leaving social media as it is the fact of being in my early thirties.  Maybe this is the time that people usually evaluate how life has gone so far, how they could have done things better, ways to serve others more meaningfully in the future.  

Knowing that someone else in history, well over two hundred years ago, worked through some of the same personal reflections that I am working through now, is comforting to me somehow.  There is nothing new under the sun.  People have gone through this before.  Significant things often happen in the latter half of life, and misused beginnings don't doom a person to repeat the same mistakes forever.

I find it interesting that Lewis wrote those words when he was actually in the middle of the task for which he is remembered most.  He bemoaned his wasted time while in the middle of what is considered his greatest accomplishment.  It makes me wonder if he didn't see the importance of what he was doing at the time in exploring the Louisiana Purchase for his young country, or if he had some other accomplishment in mind as even more meaningful.

What did he do after that grand expedition? Apparently, according to the book, he settled down on some land and raised a family.  And you know, I don't think he forgot about what he had written in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains.  I like to think that in investing the rest of his future into his family, he did indeed further the happiness of the human race and advance the information of the succeeding generation, in all the hidden ways that every parent should.