Another Important Holiday

Today marks what I believe is one of the least appreciated Holidays that our most-thoughtful and appropriately-minded government has chosen to bestow upon us the most gracious opportunity to celebrate. 

Columbus Day

While Columbus Day may have begun as a celebration and remembrance of the discovery of the "New World" by Europeans, I think it allows us to look at history through a slightly different lens...  Here's an alternative Columbus Day perspective:

• Columbus didn't "discover" anything.  Columbus merely removed a large ignorance held by the majority of Europeans at that point in time.  The "New World" was just as old as the "Old World" and the people who already lived there surely were quite aware of it's existence. 
• Columbus didn't even land in North America proper.  He landed in the Caribbean.  Granted I would rather be on a beach in the Caribbean than in a land-locked area of North America...
• Old Chris intended to end up in India.  I'd say while failing to sink in the Atlantic ocean was a decent accomplishment, he still greatly missed the mark.
• Columbus ushered in an age of conquest of indigenous people in the Americas - oh and those pesky germs...  they took a few lives too...

So, I propose we remember Columbus and his great sailing adventure for what it can teach us more than 400 years later.  In short, we likely take ourselves too seriously; not much that we "discover" is really new at all; even "failure" can be seen as "success" if spun appropriately; and it's usually the unplanned unintended consequences that we can't even yet understand that have the most lasting (and often negative) impacts to generations to come.

Thanks, Chris, for making such a nice example.  And for that, we will (or at least some our government branches will) continue to observe a Holiday in your name.