The Benefits of Reading History and Biography

Shakespeare's plays are examinations of the phenomenon of proof, and the various things we take as proof. Othello says, show me the ocular proof. We see that characters in our favourite stories being human, will label one another. And labels are reductive. There is very often a dishonesty in labels, not not always intentional. But we like to peg people, and we like to put people in boxes. The benefits of reading history and biography and reading classical texts is that we learn the lives of those long ago, now perished. i believe this stillness comes about by virtue of a transcendence of ego, identification.