It looks like the weather is changing. Starting early next week, temperatures will be 60° warmer than this week. I think it’s our first hint of possible spring. Generally, our spring warm-up starts in March.
My last post reminded me that people do not like to be reminded that we are driven in many ways by biology and not our free will. I would argue that be free will is not strictly valid because there are some cases where we can ignore our biological urges. On the other hand, we all seem to think as we are growing up that one of the things we do as an adult is have a family.
I remember there were two things I knew about becoming an adult. They were there would be a war to fight, and I have a family. The first I knew would happen because my father had been a World War II vet and my grandfather a World War I vet. Just a few years ago, I explored my family tree using ancestry. I discovered that some part of my family participated in every war going back to the French and Indian War. Perhaps, if I researched our family back to their European origins, I would find more wars we participated in as a family.
What’s even more depressing is that every culture we have known, going back as far as the archaeologists have found, was always defending itself or attacking its neighbors. Using the National Geographic’s Resource Library or the Assyrian Empire, we read, “The Assyrian Empire was a collection of city-states that existed from 900 B.C.E. to 600 B.C.E., which grew through warfare, aided by new technology such as iron weapons.” It was just one of the countless empires that rose and fell before the time of Christ. I remember taking a history course. That was not much more than a list of wars with improvements such as iron weapons occasionally marked by humane inventions such as The Code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian legal text composed c. 1755–1750 BC. Of course, the Greeks are considered to be the founders of the first democracy. It was destroyed by a war.
I have pondered why there are so many wars. Frequently, it is a leader who wants to earn more fame. It might also be on Empire who considers their religion or type of government the best for everyone in the world. Whatever the reason, it means a bad time for the average citizen. With today’s weapons, it could mean the end of the world as we know it. Think of the two leaders, one Russian and one Chinese, trying to re-create their countries’ past Empires. They both know that if they push too hard, it could result in total destruction. What no one knows is what “push too hard” means. If any of the three leaders involved, the US, the Chinese, and the Russians, feel their countrie’s existence is threatened, they will use the ultimate weapon. I don’t want to live with three men holding the existence of the world in their hands. Do you?
