patrick.net

Life goes round in circles, spirals if we're lucky, self-similar. Empires rise and fall with a monotonous thousand year cadence.

"What has been is what will be, and what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

All the fighting, all the discussion does not change the principles, which can be understood but are immutable. Every generation is born ignorant and makes the same mistakes.

Maybe the best we can do is to understand and predict, to teach the young and expect their disdain while they are young, and to put an end to our own mental games of vanity.

At least there is no arguing with a good meal, a glass of wine, and the sight of a pretty woman smiling back at you.