This final, most joyful, effusive, high-spirited yes to life is not only the highest insight, it is also the most profound, the most rigorously confirmed and supported by truth and study.

Friedrich Nietzsche
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It has been bitter cold here the past several days, not Arctic cold, perhaps, but colder than places south. Fortunately we haven't had a dusting of snow or a light rain or we would have ice all over.

I live in a part of the world where I get to see the seasons come and go, and I like that very much. Like maple trees and butterfly wings no two Springs are alike nor two Autumns. Sometimes Autumn weather will last well into Winter and sometimes, like now apparently, the Winter weather will trudge unexpected into the colorful Autumn. One must be prepared for all changes.

Being prepared for changes and looking for them is important to our lives and livelihoods, and to the stability of the society we live in. Even though the seasons rotate like the planets and even though the planett describe orbits, the movement of life is forward. Even though we can't be aware of it, standing still on a moving planet means we are never in the same place we were a moment ago. Life is forward motion, and that is as it should be.

On the other hand there are the vicious cycles, the repeated returns to positions we've grown out of, that we have progressed beyond. Whenever you have a new idea or discover a new way of doing something, an improved method, someone will try to force a return to the "old ways." I am tired of the old ways. I'm tired and angry over the forces that will try to make me conform to the old ways, to ways that no longer work for me, if they ever did.

There's an old saying "There's nothing new under the sun." Maybe, but it's not the sun's fault. The scientists of old used to examine sheep's entrails to determine the outcome of battles. Today's scientists look at the same entrails trying to determine cures for diseases.

I study philosophy, science and history to see to where the world is moving, the earth in it's orbit and humanity in its thinking. But I notice with dismay that those who are the speakers and movers of politics, religion and society are moving right back away from progress and into the futility of the past like the proverbial snake swallowing its own tail. Careless disinterest in history is causing it to be repeated.

"Gimme that old time religion, it's good enough for me." Well, it isn't good enough for me or any intelligent person who wants to step off the carousel of forward and back, forward and back, and face the destiny of life in a cosmic enclosure, free of the limitations of sameness, liberated from superstitious tradition, turned away from alarming anti-intellectualism, guided by the stars of courage, curiosity and imagination, and greet it with a loud and joyful "YES."

DB - The Vagabond
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AUTUMN QUESTION

(This is not a contest.)

At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?

Only 9 responses so far. I await your answer.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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