Hello, Internet. I am back from vacation. Kat and I went to Philadelphia to visit friends. It was fun. Philadelphia is an okay city! People live there and stuff, also cheesesteaks, which are actually delicious despite the fact that I never got the point before. Philadelphia was, I think, the last significant American city of the contiguous 48 that I hadn’t spent any real time in, so now I can totally run for President or something.

Here is a thing that occurred to me while I was there: I am a history nerd, and I’ve spent a lot of time reading specifically about US history, especially the American Revolution through the War of 1812 (super fun at parties, y’all), so I expected to be excited about all of the remnants of that which are still in Old City and the rest of Philadelphia. But you know what?

Americans’ relationship with our history is weird. That was the major conclusion I drew the past few days. Like, if I saw it in a science fiction movie or something, I would feel like it was stupid and it would take me out of the story. “Generations ago, brave, visionary men dreamed up a society for us, and thus we must deify their concepts and even, often, the men themselves, and our current politics will spend an inordinate amount of time contemplating what these long-dead ancestors would have wanted for us.” “Here is a totemic bell that was rung, hundreds of years ago, to symbolize freedom — let us gaze upon it as we consider what makes us great!” That is some weird, Game Of Thrones shit if you think about it long enough.

Which isn’t to say that history isn’t important or significant, but our relationship to it is strange. When you think of contemporary, sophisticated humans, the fact that we worship long-dead ancestors and maintain these talismans feels a bit silly. I understand why a national heritage is important — and it’s worth noting that the display near the Liberty Bell is far from uncritical of Washington, Hamilton, Adams, etc — but it’s also hard to shake the notion that we allow ourselves, constantly, to be oppressed by our own history.

But I’m not really in a place to articulate that properly right now. At the moment, I’m mostly getting back into the swing of work-things as we lead-up to SXSW, which will be the busiest ten days of my life, no foolin’. I had the cover of the Austin Chronicle again this past week, even, but wasn’t around to see it (humblebrag), so it really is hard to find time for much. But I missed you, Internet.