La costumbre ensordece

We tend to see history as something alien to us, facts collected in books and documentaries that seem to happen only to great people. And yet, each apparently insignificant gesture, each object and daily detail that fills our days, is the product of centuries, even millennia of events and innovations that have changed the world over and over again. Throughout any day, we will go through some of the stories that are hidden behind our breakfasts, our workdays or our relationships. We will discover that many of the things we take for granted were not always like this, and that there was even a time when doctors advised against bathing or when people starved even when surrounded by potatoes, corn or wheat. Like someone who peels an onion, we will reveal the layers of wonder hidden under the most routine reality, the one that we have stopped perceiving, because as Samuel Beckett said in Waiting for Godot, "custom is deafening."