QUOTESSAYS

  That is because by definition and necessity, history only exists after the fact. Add to that the old idiom history is written by the winners, and the waters get muddy fast. Had the Axis won WW2 you can be sure our history books would read very differently today. Academic history is very much a product of the state educational, i.e., indoctrination system. Nothing is more cloistered than a tenured university level history professor. Their slant on history is a brand they have nurtured, and they will protect that version because it is their livelihood and identity. A Marxist and an Objectivist would both have a very different take on history and both be correct in part. Perspective is everything. Then there is the issue of unintended consequences. That is where history can get real sticky and twisted. In my lifetime I have seen several versions of history completely upended and turned inside out. History gets distorted pretty fast and is prone to succumb to political fad and fashion an

 More wisdom generated by AI. AI seems to be the only intelligence that can come up with an original thought these days. I have always thought of romance, or leading a romantic life, in these terms. No one really has a clue what it is all about and we just make stuff up as we go along. Romantic misadventures are the perfect thing to occupy our time with until we get too old to care and check out..... 

 This one from Canadian author and all-around cheery guy Robertson Davies. Overall, I have been a relatively happy person in life. I know when I have it good. I think part of it is all the jobs and life situations where I have been around people whose lives were totally fucking nightmares. All my difficult times were really self-induced, experimental, and transcending in nature, and I always had an escape route available. Many don't have that option. I was born into the post WW2 Boomer generation during the peak of the USA as an empire, when optimism was high, and options plentiful. 20 years of war and economic depression were over with, and people were ready to rock. Add to that being white, middle class, and raised in coastal California in the 60's, and I hit the trifecta in life. My formative years were quite literally almost a beach party flick that morphed into 'Easy Rider'.  Both my mother and grandmother would be considered extremely bi-polar these days. Their mo