That did not take long!

 I can’t say that I was expecting it, but while I was writing my previous post the thought did occur to me that some folks might take exception to my statement that over time everyone is forgotten, by invoking the names of biblical figures as examples of beings who will live forever and never be forgotten. One reader did send an email using that very argument to dispute me, specifically citing god and Jesus as examples. I really don’t want to get involved in a discussion on that subject, because the writer of the email is not comparing apples to apples. But…I feel like I have to respond so here goes.

My post dealt with real people, people whose existence can be/has been factually proven. The bones in the cemetery photo in the previous post are real, and with diligent effort their identities could be discovered. There is not one shred of concrete evidence proving that Jesus existed. There is circumstantial evidence but no actual proof. Many respected historians believe that Jesus probably existed. Two ancient historians; Tacitus and Josephus frequently mention Jesus in their writings, but they were writing almost 100 years after the supposed death of Jesus. Personally I believe that a man named Jesus – minus the parables and miracles, probably existed. I also believe that over time he will be forgotten.

Jesus is viewed as a god-like figure, and as such he will go the way of all gods. The longest reigning god in recorded history is the Egyptian god Osiris (center figure above) who was worshiped from about 3100 BC to 30 BC. That’s over 3,000 years. Other Egyptian gods not far behind him are Ra and Isis. All three were gradually replaced with the Greek gods; Zeus, Hera, etc., who in turn gave way to the Roman gods. Just imagine how many hundreds, maybe thousands of gods came into being and then disappeared during the 200,000 years of human existence prior to recorded history. Some ancient gods are still hanging in there. The Indian gods Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu are still with us today.

Human history tells us that, though gods will come and go, it is likely that there will always be gods. In this era one of the most active gods is the Christian god Jehovah, whose followers believe that it is their duty to convert non-Christians. And they are succeeding, having grown to 2.63 billion members from 2.52 in 2020. Christianity has the most followers world-wide, followed by Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

Gods only exist if people believe in them. When belief disappears, so do the gods. Why do we need gods…what purpose do they serve? Gods are needed because we are afraid of death and want a landing pad…an afterlife. They are also needed to explain origin – of us and the universe. That is why every religion has a creation story.  

Let me finish this post with some thoughts that I seem to always have about this time of the year. Christmas shopping really heats up starting in November. Gifts and decorations are purchased as are plane tickets and other Christmas related items. Stores increase their hours and inventory and hire seasonal help. Airlines and airports do what they can to accommodate travelers. Work crews are busy decorating city parks and streets while home owners and businesses are stringing lights. Pigs run for their lives but to no avail. They will be the center piece on the Christmas dinner table. And then on the 25^th of December everything comes to a halt. The cost of this mass celebration is estimated in the USA to be 1.1 trillion dollars. And the root of it all is to celebrate the birthday of a man named Jesus, who may never have existed. That to me is mind boggling.

Is it important to be remembered?

 Homo Sapiens (that’s us humans) emerged about 200,000 years ago. During that period of time it is estimated that 107 billion of us have lived on this planet. Today’s population is estimated at 8 billion. Crunching the numbers shows that 99.9% of all the humans who ever existed are dead. In modern times, world-wide, about 170,790 of us die every day. The recent death of a friend started me wondering how many people will remember him or the others who died that day and for how long. I think that if you’re the average person; one who didn’t have a street or building named after you, and weren’t a celebrity or billionaire philanthropist, and weren’t a person of notoriety like Hitler, Alexander the Great, Abe Lincoln or Genghis Kahn, you won’t be remembered very long. That thought led me to another question. What does it mean…to be ‘remembered’? Friends and family who knew you will occasionally think of you and will mention you in conversation with others but that won’t last long, and after the third generation of your descendants has passed no one will know who wrote that old letter found in a drawer, or who that is in that faded photo. When there is nothing or no one left who knew of you or at least had heard your name, you will have ceased to exist. It seems to me that most of us want to be remembered, and remembered at the apex of our lives, probably because we view being remembered as a continuation of our lives. As long as someone thinks and talks about us, we may be dead but we’re not dead dead.

How a person is remembered depends on where you died and where your remains are located. For example, I lived in northern Peru for nine years and witnessed that the average Peruvian has a much closer and deeper relationship with the dead than we have in the USA. The formal grieving period can last for a year. It can include a church mass from day one and then frequently through the year. Those who are strongly religious will wear black and not dance or sing during that year. They will visit the burial site at least monthly and will shed tears each time as if the death had just occurred. The cemetery visits of those who grieve continue through their lifetime.

The cemeteries vary considerably depending on the finances of the municipality. There are some, especially the newer ones that resemble a park-like setting. The photo below is more typical of a small village cemetery.

Some of the individual family tombs can be very elaborate (and expensive). They are well maintained and are never without fresh flowers. I suspect that those inside will be remembered by many generations for a long time. In the poorer villages there is no agency or individual responsibility for cemetery maintenance, thus they are generally older, have been vandalized, and in too many cases the collective tombs are in various states of disintegration.

Are these people remembered? Most probably there is no one left who remembers or knew them. They have ceased to exist in body and memory, their bones left to bleach in the sun.

So is it important to be remembered? I think that it is, at least in the short term by friends and family who knew them and find comfort from their memories. In the long term we will all be forgotten.

The future - a good place to be?

The previous post in my opinion proved via the Histomap that no nation prevails forever. What the map doesn’t tell us is why nations decline. There are tons of books written about the fall of Greece, Spain, England, Persia, Egypt, Rome, etc. No one can read them all, and some of those I have read have left me confused and with more questions than answers (I will also admit that some of the more scholarly books are beyond my understanding). When I began my search yesterday for the reasons nations fall, I was hoping to find a Histomap-type graph that graphically depicted the reasons for decline. If not that, I hoped to find several knowledgeable sources that had simple, brief bullet point lists. My plan was then to select those causes in common from the various sources and call it good. That didn’t work. Complexity rather than simplicity seems to be the rule on the subject of empires failing. And agreement on causes are rare. Each source I read seemed to have its own pet theory(s) to explain why nations fail. Another issue adding to complexity is that nations that failed up to and through the Middle Ages fell for reasons different than those nations failing after the Middle Ages. Barbian invasion followed by rape and pillage is not so common in modern times, though Ukraine, Syria and some other countries may disagree.

We are entering the age of artificial intelligence so I asked Window’s Copilot for an answer to my questions. It gave me six reasons for nations declining:

Economic troubles – high national debt, persistent budget deficits,

Political instability – political corruption, loss of public trust in institutions

Social issues – inequality, increased crime rates, declining public health

Military weakness - I don’t think the USA has gotten weak. The bad guys have gotten stronger. Russia, China, North Korea and Iran could be the axis powers of WW lll.

Environmental degradation – Not sure I agree with this

Cultural decline – loss of cultural identity, declining educational standards

Let me add two of my own indicators that a nation is in trouble.

Lack of collective objective reasoning – Many people believe they are thinking when all they are doing is rearranging prejudices.

Ignoring the Golden Rule – nuff said

There is an article in The Hill titled “Five reasons American decline appears irreversible.” It was written a year ago but in my opinion is relevant today. I think that it hits the nail on the head. The article says that the ‘five reasons’ are irreversible. Are they? Human history says that they are. To me it depends on if someday we humans can leave the caves behind behaviorally.  

The Paradox of Learning from History

In my previous post I wrote that in my opinion the first quarter of 2025 is going to be very interesting. I placed it in the context of Donald Trump’s actions, but my interest in/concern for the future transcends Trump, Harris, Biden, Republicans and Democrats. Russia’s president Putin said that there is a new world order in the making. He is right, though it isn’t a world order that is new and happening overnight. Men, countries, nations, empires, gods and institutions have been coming and going for many centuries. Nothing is static; change is ongoing. The Unites States we know now is not the country of 1725 nor will it be the country of 2325, by which time the entire world stage will be different.

In 1931 a man named John Sparks created what is now known as the Histomap which shows the rise and fall of global powers over a 4,000 year period. It is an incredible document in that it graphically depicts the beginning, the high-water mark and the decline of the most prominent world powers from 2,000 BC to 1,900 CE. 

I’ll give you the link in a minute but first let me explain a few things. The x axis on top lists the most prominent world powers. The y axis is the time in 50-year increments. The width of the nations at any given year indicates the country’s relative power.  Egypt for example, is the big kid on the block at the top of the chart in 2000 BC. By following it down you can see the gains and loss of its stature over time until it ceases to be a world power. In the lower left corner you will see the United States. In the grand scheme of things we were a Johnny-come-lately and a medium sized power. If the data continued to today we would be the big guy. But for how long?

Here is the link. Please do yourself a favor and look at the chart. You will see living, moving history, and the certainty that change is inevitable. We can learn from history but thus far we haven’t been able to use that knowledge to alter our future. That is the paradox.   

Of Winners and Losers

For anyone interested in November’s presidential election, broadcast news is still hammering on the election and its aftermath. A barrage of issues old and new are presented every day. For me there are only two issues that I am interested in. One is Trumps nominees, the other is if he will really carry out all the threats that he has made…that he will take action on them on “day one”. I think that his actions will be less severe than his election bluster. For example, he has recently said that he may not pardon all of the capital rioters, and that he may keep us in NATO if the other countries live up to their commitments. Personally, I agree with his stance on NATO, but strongly disagree on pardoning any of the capital rioters.

I am also hearing and reading comments regarding Biden’s “abdication”, and Harris’s disappearance since losing the election. I think that Biden standing down is just dealing with reality. Some years ago a superior that I reported to announced his retirement. Almost overnight he became a non-entity. He was still shown respect, but he was no longer treated as a team leader, or even as a team member. I discussed the situation with him and remember him saying that, “…once you announce, you’re gone.” That’s where Biden is now, in the land of limbo. So is Harris. I feel sorry for her though I’m sure that she doesn’t need my sympathy. She ran a good campaign. Yes, she lost but if she is a loser than so are the 74.4 million of us who voted for her. That number represents 48.3 % of the total vote. Trump finished with 49.9 % or 76.9 million votes. Voter turn out was 63.7 % who cast 151.3 million votes. I find it interesting that in a year when there was so much hype and so much at stake, that out of 244.7 million voter eligible persons, 89.3 million didn’t vote. That raises another thought for me. I have heard a few Republicans say that the American people have given Trump a ‘mandate’. In election speak, mandate is usually interpreted to mean a significant majority. I don’t think it can reasonably be said that Trump received a significant majority. And, if the number of Harris voters and non-voters is added together, the total is 163.7 million who didn’t vote for Trump…more than double the number of votes he did receive. Anyway you slice it he did not receive a mandate from the American people.

Anyway, those numbers don’t mean anything now. For better or worse its over and done. I for one will be watching future events with a degree of apprehension. Whatever Trump does or doesn’t do, it is going to be one hell of an interesting first quarter in 2025. 

An Afternoon Walk in the Past

It has been said of me that I should have been an historian or archeologist, because my thoughts and focus are so often in the past. I usually reply that the future has not yet happened, and that the present becomes the past almost instantly, so for practical purposes the past is all that there is. But I know what they mean and can't argue the point. I definitely do have an affinity for the past. An example is a walk in the neighborhood yesterday afternoon.

Fairview is a large, modest piece of country dotted with modest homes owned by working class people. You won't find any mansions here, and are more likely to see houses that are in need of attention. The area was once known as the Peach Orchard. Some still refer to it as that. I don't know why. Anyway, while we're walking I try to imagine what the land looked like when the Cherrokee were the sole residents. I know that it is completely different, but the geography; the hills and ravines are the same as they were in the early 1800s so I have to content myself with that. 

It was sometime around 1838 that President Andrew Jackson ordered the forced removal of the entire Cherrokee nation to a reservation in Oklahoma. That opened the gates for the settlers to come pouring in. To my knowledge one of the first was Xanders McFarland, who quickly became one of the largest landowners in the area, including the land my house is on. I've been trying off and on to trace the owners of my property from McFarland to me with no success. 

Our walk took us past a car graveyard. For some unknown reason this Chevy Sport Blazer has always intrigued me. 

I can't look at it without seeing it sitting in the Morristown, Tennessee dealer showroom in 1987, with mom and dad and maybe a couple of kids looking at it. Dad is trying his best to look nonchalant in front of his family and the salesman, but inside he wants to drive this vehicle so badly that he is starting to sweat. Later, after the papers are signed I can see the Blazer tooling down the street; a smug look on dad’s face and the kids peering out the back side windows. Who knows where that car has been, who has driven it, how many owners it has had, what adventures it experienced, and how it came to be in this graveyard in Fairview, Georgia? The answer to the last part of this question seems evident - the front end on the driver side is completely demolished. Wherever it happened, it was a violent ending. There are other cars in the graveyard, some so deeply buried in jungle-like brush and undergrowth that it is impossible to get to them. And each has a story to tell.

Not too far away is what remains of what appeared to be a fine house. All that remains now is the front facade. The roof and all the walls are laying crumpled on the ground. The brickwork leading to the house talks to me. I can see quests ascending the concrete steps and following a path that today leads to nowhere. There is no way of knowing when this house was built. My guess would be anywhere from the early to mid-1900s.

There are more reminders of the past; more pictures to be taken. The final photo yesterday was of the return to our house. The sun was setting, the temperature was mild, and as usual the only sounds were from birds. Fortunately history doesn’t stop with our return home. At approximately 3:00 PM on September 20, 1863 a federal army defeated at the Battle of Chickamauga was hastily retreating through the McFarland Gap on its way to Rossville and then to Chattanooga. Our home is about 500 yards from the gap, and no doubt many Union soldiers traveled over our land to reach the gap. There to see them hurry by was a 161-year-old water oak (towering over the garage). The tree is now estimated to be 240 years old, which takes us back to 1784. Perhaps a Cherokee brave out hunting watched a squirrel bury the acorn that would become the massive tree that exists on our land today.    

When I am sitting in a chair 20 feet from that oak, watching burgers cooking on the wood grill, I think about that Chevy Blazer, the remains of the old house, the retreating soldiers, and what the land must have looked like to that oak as a young sapling. If time travel was a real thing....

Somewhat Disappointing

 In a couple of days Phase 1 of the election process will be over. Phase 1 is the part where potential voters are bombarded with politics. It is inescapable. Between the time when I am starting this post and then finishing it I will probably receive 5 - 6 or more emails telling me how angelic one candidate is and how demonic the other is. Television programs and the internet present themselves as news programs but they really are biased electioneering. I particularly enjoy the trite phrases, including the one that says how the other candidate is a serious threat to our country and democracy. 

Various polls have been showing for some time that the election is virtually even at this point. Which I find interesting. The latest stats that I have found say that there are 186.5 million voters registered in this country. If the polls prove to be true, that means that each candidate will receive 93.25 million votes. Think about that. Each side fervently believes that they are right and the other side is crazy (crazy is a word that's been tossed around a lot in this election). How is it possible that 93.25 million people see the truth, while the other 93.25 million are crazy? It would probably take a conference of 100 socialists and psychologists 10 years to answer that question. And 93.25 million people would not accept the group's conclusion. 

Anyway, next Wednesday Phase 2 of the process will begin. That will involve hundreds of accusations about voting fraud being tossed about. Investigations will be held; suits will be filed, and best of all endless conspiracy theorists will entertain us into the unforeseeable future. Some will even claim to have proof. I'll be 84 next month, and I am mildly hopeful that we will settle on who was elected president sometime before my 85th birthday. 

I voted early last week. When I handed in my ballet I was given a sticker that says, "I'm a Georgia Voter - I secured my vote." I wonder what that means? How did I secure my vote? If Trump looses he won't believe my vote was "secured". And I do hope that he looses. Now, living here in the south smack in the middle of a cultural far-right mindset, voting against Trump makes me one of the "crazies." I don't go around publicizing that I'm anti-Trump, and I don't bring up the subject in conversation, but I also will not back down if the topic does arise.  

When I left the voting both last week  I had a sort of helpless feeling. I would like to be able to do more to defeat Trump, but there isn't anything else. I did have one thought though that kind of perked me up. I thought of the most obnoxious MAGA guy that I know, and imagined telling him that I had just neutralized his vote - made his vote meaningless. That probably should not be a source of pleasure for me but that's the way it is these days, and that is somewhat disappointing.