If you think that being a historian is merely a school-related job, think again. A historian's job is not simply about studying the past, or teaching history in school, or writing about it in print and social media. Historiography is a science. It encompasses almost all realms of the human intellect, making them function into one cohesive force in order for a historian to get a clearer picture of events past.
A historian oftentimes plays the role of an investigator, trying to unearth the background of an event which made it an event. A historian should be well-versed on the linguistic environment of the time period that he seeks to investigate so as not to be lost in translation. And speaking of translation, it is given that he should be fluent in the language of the milieu that he is studying (especially in our country's case) in order to extract impeccable research results on the idioms of a community that no longer exists.
A historian also plays the role of a psychiatrist, scrutinizing the behavior of a historical character in order to determine what made that character do what he did as a prime mover of history. He should also be a sociologist with anthopological leanings in order to avoid the notion that historical personas and the societies they lived in were simply of a black-and-white affair. Rebellions and revolutions were not simply a case of good vs evil, heroes vs villains. These "textbook personas" were once people like us, with flaws and ambitions and creeds. They ate and drank, they loved, they had their personal demons, they enjoyed the world. As such, they should be treated in the same manner that we treat other people today.
Historians are not confined to libraries. Oftentimes, field research is needed. They had to travel and visit ancestral houses, forest trails, and even cemeteries. Historical research entails a lot of walking, too (thus a historian has to stay fit and healthy). They had to immerse themselves in the cultures of different communities with the hopes of getting more clues about their past and origins of their oral traditions. Sometimes, a book doesn't reveal as much as what an actual historical place does.
A background in law is essential since history is filled with politicians and events that are shaped by political decisions. Knowledge of architecture, the arts, military science, how microbes contributed to wartime decisions, the religious dilemma of a society, how the introduction of new tools shaped the behavior of an underdeveloped tribal community, and even mathematics and the use of Boolean logic for online research — all these are essential tools and knowledge for a successful study of the past.
As you can see, it's never that easy.
In view of the foregoing, a historian can also serve a seer as he can somehow foretell the future by studying the statistics and probabilities of a past that is, after all, never stagnant, is in fact liquid, a flowing wavelength that is still connected to and influences the present. Where these wavelengths appear chaotic, a historian can always detect order and symmetry.
So don't treat historians as mere classroom teachers. They are the purveyors of our past. And the reason why we are even talking about a "national identity" is because of the historian's painstaking work. And never underestimate history, as if it's a topic limited only within the four walls of a classroom. Everyone must be involved in it, must talk about it often. Because our future lies in the past.
Or better still: the past is our future.
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