New Eyes

"The real journey of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes but in seeing with new eyes."

Marcel Proust

Don't be blinded by political or historical labels attached to historical eras. Look at the politics and history with "new eyes", not as disconnected bits and pieces of events but as continuities. There is far more continuity in history than discontinuity. We cannot escape our past, and those who try condemn future generations to historical blindness. Simply labeling a time in history does not break the seamless connections that link people and events over time. The Romantic Era was affected by the Enlightened Era. Our era is affected by the "Cold War" Era. The patterns of one era don't simply vanish with the onset of another era. No, these patterns often become the unseen instigators of present troubles or triumphs, the currents beneath the waves of change continually buffeting and bobbing us upon the wine-dark seas.

Events flow with one another. Sudden changes are usually illusions. Old patterns tend to reassert themselves over time, just as habits of an individual built over a lifetime. To follow a policy based upon the assumption that sudden changes are permanent is the height of folly and invariably leads to disaster. Look upon the past with new eyes, eyes that see patterns, not random events. Despite the disdain that the modern world holds for seeing patterns, the fact is that patterns are far more prevalent in history and current events than chaos. There are patterns in the lives of individuals, this leads to patterns in social life and in the lives of nations.

Chaos usually is the confusion that exists in your mind, NOT any phenomenon in the outside world. Kant was wrong. The mind is far more susceptible to chaos than is the world. We tend to find Truth complicated and declare its nonexistence, just as we found God complicated and declared His death.

Embrace complications. Look at the world in all its aspects with "new eyes." Don't fall for the easy way of declaring that all is chaotic and unknowable. Dare to see patterns.

John.