Crawling On

The future seems to me no unified dream but a mince pie, long in the baking, never quite done.

Edward Young
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Who can predict the future? Who can say for certain that if we do "this thing" then "that thing" will happen, if it hasn't happened before? Civilization is a grand experiment, an improvisation, so uncertain, so unpredictable and in such a state of potential chaos that people come up with some of the most absurd beliefs to try to make sense out of it. They want to draw circles around everything and put ideas and actions into little boxes, like hieroglyphics, and then put labels on them.

I listen to all kinds of music and I amuse myself sometimes by wondering what composers of the past would think about how music has developed over the years. Johann Sebastian Bach was an unqualified genius and a very prolific composer of the 18th Century. I wonder what he would think of the music of Richard Strauss, or George Gershwin, or Led Zeppelin. Has music developed the way musicians expected it to, foretold it would and, in some cases, guaranteed it would?

I don't ;like Rap Music. It doesn't matter that I don't like it, it's what we have these days. I wouldn't have guessed it was coming. A lot of people don't like it, but I'm just an old fogy so I'll stay out of the fray.

I was talking with my friend Marty last night, and he made an observation which I had never thought about. The First World War was not called The First World War until after the Second World War. It was known as The War To End All Wars, and some people actually believed that, most people probably. At least it was the hope. But alas, along came World War Two. And after all the surrenders were complete World War Three started. There is always a war going on somewhere in the world, from the bushes of the Amazon forest to the deserts of the Middle East. Who predicted that?

The snail I wrote about a few days ago may have made it to the Ark, that was his destination, but he couldn't have known what he was going to encounter along the way.

Selfishness rules. Many people want their little boxes and don't seem to care about peace, disarmament, the growth of science, art, education and culture on the earth, an improved society, a greater more advanced civilization, a better world. Those are definite dreams and destinations for the rest of us to crawl toward. But we have no idea what challenges, changes and dilemmas we will face on the way. The pie is still in the oven.

DB - The Vagabond
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Thank you for all the Valentine's Day greetings.
I'm getting a lot of interesting mangled cliches so I'm leaving the quiz up for another day.

"A stitch in time is worth two in the bush."

Your assignment is to take two or more grand old sayings, cliches, sage saws or famous quotes and cobble (clobber) them together to make a new and wiser adage or utter nonsense as in the above.

Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased judge is final.

Good luck.
DB
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