‘Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.’

Søren Kierkegaard, Danish existentialist. You might think of history as fixed, ‘it is what it was’. Yet it continues to be revisited. The future brings fresh eyes to the past. Understanding the history of science, politics or art is an ongoing process, not an inalterable checklist of ‘facts’ and events.

On a personal level too, every day brings the unexpected, new challenges and fresh demands for each of us. Life is a foray into the unknown. You may feel ill-prepared but it’s also an adventure. If you knew every detail of your future … well, I’m not sure that would be a good or bad thing.

It may seem better to know what’s coming up for us, to always have the answers and be able to deal competently with the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’, to quote Shakespeare’s Hamlet. But doesn’t your gut tell you we’re not meant to know? A pearl is formed in an oyster by the irritation of sand particles. Maybe this too is how we grow and evolve as human beings.

Does growing our understanding about what has been - big picture, little picture, nationally, socially, individually - better equip us to embrace what is to come? Yes, I reckon it does.