bird's eye view
Studying history gives one a sense of ineluctable transience. There is something about traversing whole centuries within the turn of a page that feeds my ingrown nihilism, and it is the merest of exercises in imagination to envision myself in a sentence of history perhaps as yet unwritten - "By the late twentieth century, Chinese diaspora communities, already keenly attuned to dispersal, had adopted en masse the practice of sending their offspring to Western schools and universities with hopes of 'globalizing' them in preparation for global employment, thus creating a diaspora within itself..." This, I must admit, is rather depressing: that the consummation of my legacy in history might conceivably be contained solely within my role as 'offspring'. Not, of course, that I deserve any better - notoriety is easier gained than fame, and I would rather have neither than the latter by dint of the former.