THE SHALLOWS OF TIME REVISITING THE CONCEPT OF HISTORICAL DOCUMENTATION

Every time the sun sets, the historical record of mankind has grown one day longer. Every year that passes stuffs our history books with a new chapter. This unstoppable progression of time makes history more and more impossible to explore. It is like a house that grows a new room every day. The searcher is reduced to skimming each room. Any thorough analysis would mean neglecting the other rooms. (This analogy is appropriate for at least one more unnerving reason to be addressed later.)

To veer off into another analogy, history is an ocean of information and each second that passes, another drop falls into the vast waves. Historians are incapable (due to the tyranny of time itself) of effectively studying or understanding anything but certain eras. A scholar must skim the lesser depths of the whole stretch of history or dive deep into one limited area of this vast sea.

This means that as time goes by, less is known. Since we are unable to map out every single event that transpires, there are more nooks and crannies (so to speak) in which unusual or even absurd things might seclude themselves. What we might consider to be myths or urban legends, could simply be aspects of this existence that have learned to be sly and secretive, using the shadows of our knowledge to their advantage.

Even as we become more sophisticated, we know less of this world that we live in. It is not inconceivable that significant things have escaped our notice.