Studying history makes us wise. One highly praised reflection on the documentary A General History of China puts it this way:
In the vast river of history, each person is as insignificant as a drop in the ocean. A few lightly sketched lines may describe the tumultuous life of someone from the past. If even the best among them struggled at every step, how could people like us expect life to go smoothly? As the saying goes: “Three thousand years of reading history come down to fame, fortune, and rank; ninety thousand miles of seeking the Way end in poetry, wine, and pastoral life.” Finally, I want to say this: the Chinese of the past all had one ultimate goal, to be remembered in the annals of history. A page of history you skip over without a second thought may record someone's extraordinary life. Their lives were so remarkable that I dare not use too many embellishments, for fear of describing them poorly.
