How do I read about yesterday’s horrors when today’s look exactly the same?

I’ve always been someone who loved historical fiction — especially books set around World War II. Those stories shaped so much of my reading life. I used to read at least ten of them a year. There was something about understanding the past, the wars, the cruelty humans inflicted on one another, that made me feel more grounded. As if learning those stories helped me make sense of the world.

But these days… I can’t.
Not because I don’t care anymore, but because every time I try, it physically drains me.
Emotionally too.

Reading about past atrocities while watching present ones unfold on my phone screen — it’s a strange kind of heartbreak. It’s like reliving history while knowing it’s happening all over again, just with new names, new borders, new excuses.

I don’t know if others feel this, too. Maybe they do. Maybe some readers are hiding the same ache, the same exhaustion. Because for me, historical fiction used to be a way of learning empathy. Now it feels like a mirror, reflecting the same horrors I’m seeing in real time — Gaza, Ukraine, everywhere.

And I keep thinking:
How are we repeating history with so much confidence?
Did we learn nothing?

I don’t know how today’s wars will be written in tomorrow’s books. I don’t know how much will be softened, or erased, or turned into something noble or strategic or “necessary,” because that’s what history usually does. It protects the victors. It hides the uncomfortable parts. It sanitises cruelty.

But right now, in this moment, I don’t see victors anywhere.
There are no heroes in modern war.
Only people losing their homes, their families, their humanity.
Only us — losing pieces of ourselves every time we scroll through another headline.

So am I becoming pessimistic?
Maybe.
Maybe not.

I’m pessimistic because governments — all governments — seem to chase power more than peace. Because leaders speak of morality while doing the opposite. Because even in tragedies, someone somewhere is calculating gain.

But I’m also strangely optimistic.
Optimistic because people still care.
Because they still protest.
Because they still hope.
Because each new generation believes that maybe, this time, something will finally change.

Look at Nepal’s Gen Z movement. I don’t know what its long-term effects will be. Maybe it’s too early to judge. Maybe the very people who stood together will clash later — that’s how movements go. But still, that moment mattered. It meant something. And I pray, honestly, that the ones who lost their lives, their soul, their fire… that it wasn’t all for nothing.

Maybe that’s what keeps me going.
Not history.
Not politics.
Not leaders.

But people.
Just ordinary people trying their best not to repeat the same mistakes.

Maybe one day I’ll return to historical fiction.
Maybe when the world feels a little less heavy.
Maybe when my heart can hold both past and present without breaking.

Until then, I’ll just sit with this feeling — that strange mix of sadness, anger, exhaustion, and hope.
Hope that we don’t have to keep repeating history.
Hope that we can, somehow, survive it.