I'm Patrick Wyman. Welcome to Past Lives.

If you lived a hundred years ago, who would you have been? What about a thousand years ago? Or 10,000?

I can promise you this much. You, yes, you, wouldn't have been someone you've ever heard of before.

The stories we tell about the past tend to revolve around powering figures like Alexander

the Great and Napoleon and Cleopatra.

These individuals whose myths have their own centers of gravity.

When we're taught history in school, it's largely through the lives and experiences of these people who,

were told, were significant, important.

We learned to memorize their names and the dates of battles, coronations, and other key events associated with them.

Now, don't get me wrong.

We can learn a lot about the past from these people, who they were and what they did.

This is what historical figureheads are for.

But they're not you.

Now, you listening to this might be rich, famous, and powerful, but statistically, you're

probably not.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

Most of us aren't rich and famous.

But we, you, me, people like us, are the raw material of history.

The stuff history is actually made of. We always have been.

Most of us do probably have a king or queen or two decorating our family trees.

As a matter of probability, with everyone having millions upon millions of ancestors, it's practically

certain. But the vast majority of your ancestors and mine were the common clay of humanity.

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