i don't know if it's cowardly to isolate from the news of the world. i do know it's a luxury and i don't take it for granted. i have no desire to take up the cause of anything anymore. it seems too much like tilting at windmills and i really think i am too old at this point to want to do so. i find it ironic that my foray into my ancestry has opened me up to history that is far too much like the present to suit me. i am currently reading thoreau's 'civil disobedience' and just finished 'walden'- and although he wrote these in the 1840's and '50's, it could easily have been today. corrupt and greedy politicians and materialistic citizens seem to be the american way and it's a real shame. thoreau tilted at windmills too.
i did have an interesting, ironic twist in my readings- my father's family on his maternal side are part of the seneca nation. and as i was driving home today, i caught myself thinking- if i had to give up my life tomorrow- my home, family, means of provision- i wouldn't be any different than my ancestors almost 300 years ago. those folks had homes- not tepees- and acres of corn, beans, etc., they had villages and keepsakes and lives. and they were taken away by the same type of corrupt, greedy bastards that run things here today.
my mom tells me that there is a saying out there that goes 'if you know history, it can't repeat itself'- or something like that. i can honestly say that it is patently untrue. it doesn't matter if one knows what happened before your time- human nature is a constant. only technology changes.
