How netflix inspired me to learn

...If I was to be totally truthful, I should attribute it to ITV but I didn't want to lose your attention too soon.




A while ago I watched (on ITV) a TV program called Victoria which followed the life of Queen Victoria when she first becomes Queen. Being a drama show with flamboyant artistic license and having zero attention span, I would Google things throughout the show to see if certain events did happen.

Once that series was over (until the new series starts soon. Eeeh). I watched The Crown on Netflix which follows the life of Queen Elizabeth II when she first becomes Queen. Being a drama show with flamboyant artistic license and having zero attention span, I would Google things throughout the show to see if certain events did happen.

Once that series was over (until the new series starts soon. Eeeh). I watched Reign which follows the life of Mary, Queen of Scots when she first becomes Queen. Being a drama show with flamboyant artistic license and having zero attention span, I would Google things throughout the show to see if certain events did happen.

Image found during the 1500s

Artistic license

There is no more Reign to watch since the protagonist of the show gets her head cut off, so that kind of severs (hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha) any chance of a new series. If you're annoyed I spoiled the ending then shame on you for not knowing what happened.

Except.

I didn't know that.

Maybe I didn't remember from school or they didn't cover it but regardless I really did not know when I was watching it that Mary would get her head chopped off.

Because I was never into history. I honestly did not care. Especially after school. I found it boring. Too much has happened before I landed on this earth, how can I even begin to learn it all. I have terrible memory.

But when something captivates your imagination, albeit a lavish TV show about the monarch with no regard for historical accuracy, you're in the head space place to learn more about it. After Reign, I watched a documentary about Hampton Court Palace. Then I watched several documentaries about Queen Elizabeth I with one presented by David Starkey. When Starkey was involved, it was at that moment when I realised I was all in.

No. Wait.

It was when I bought this book at a car boot sale when I knew I was all in.

You know when you see a Facebook ad of something after you talk about it. I was talking about my recent obsession with the Tudors and this suddenly came into view at the next stall. 

Learning something that you can't do anything with isn't my usual style. My personal development ideas are different. Learn the ukulele and make music. Learn to paint and make art (although there is an obvious reason why my paintings don't make it on social media but I'll write about that another time). Learn to meditate to be less anxious. Listen and watch empowering videos to be a badass bitch. Not that any of these things have amounted to great success but I'm in for the long game. 

The cycle goes "teach me oh learned one" to *tries dreadfully hard to replicate in my own kind of way and do it over and over and over again* to *something of questionable quality is made with my bare hands and sweat*. 

But learning about history suspends the ego. It's only a 2-way flow; I'm looking outwards to learn, information streams into me...yet no flow of me doing something with it to push it back out there. It's not about me and I guess I've always made it about me and my ego. Look at me making this about me when I'm trying to say it's not about me. FFS.  

Humans are curious. And we're sequential. You've got to know what happened then to know why something happened now. If you know that Mary got her head chopped off, it then it led to her son becoming the first monarch to rule England, Ireland and Scotland and then there's a load of people in between but now that's why we have 1 Queen of a united kingdom.

But you all already knew that. I'm just playing catch up.

Now leave me be, I need to see if Netflix did a series about Queen Anne because I seem to have started this path of female monarchs and my god I'm going to keep it going (as long as the wardrobe's banging).

What have you enjoyed (re)learning about at the moment?