so this post was prompted by the fact that a few hours ago i fell into the rabbit hole of reading the top posts of all time on this subreddit... for several hours... adding books to my amazon wishlist... going into the rabbit hole of wikipedia articles... having a couple dozen tabs open in my browser...

"back in the days" of actual hard copy bookstores and libraries i loved going randomly through the history section or even on a lazy day picking up those compendiums like "1001 most important history factoids ever"..

on the one hand, i guess it's a shame that fewer of us are reading entire in-depth books... but on the other hand the amazing availability of information gives me a broader overall knowledge of history and then allows me to hone in on my biggest casual interests. and in moments like this i'm not sure what to do with my excitement. i want to absorb all of this info so much.

and then that made me think about the [world renown experts-on-their-topic] college professors i had who actually wrote the textbooks on specific subjects, who looking back i wish i could ask questions of as casually as we ask them here... rather than just reluctantly doing their assigned homework...

so hats off to all you historians and thank you all for contributing to this subreddit! without this place, i would have forgotten about so many topics that i subconsciously come across every day but i realize it's this place that helps keep my historical perspective and critical thinking sharp.