As we get into the later years of our lives, after we’ve lost a parent (or both) and more than a few school chums, we start to consider, perhaps for the first time, our own mortality.
Dylan Thomas is best remembered for his poem that begins: Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
As shown at left, however, the Stoics had a far different, and, I would suggest, healthier approach to that event that ultimately confronts all of us.
Their Latin saying, Memento mori, “remember that you [have to] die’, may sound equally macabre, but it carries the same life affirming concept as does “Carpe diem.” Make every moment count, toward whatever you wish to achieve for yourself, and/or for those around you.
At left we see why Lincoln would have done well to let the Confederacy cede from the Union. He could have simply written a letter to Robert E. Lee stating:
Keep your slaves and your land…for now. Wait until you experience the effects of near-zero industrial and military technology development and the civilized world’s refusal to trade with you barbarians. By the end of the 19th Century, a stiff breeze will blow you away. Maybe some future U.S. president will invade you with a troop of Boy Scouts with slingshots, or maybe a handful of banditos will ride up from Mexico.
What former labor secretary Robert Reich says at left is exactly what I believe.
First of all, the idea that the Democratic party has turned into the “radical left” is pure GOP propaganda.
In any case, you either support American democracy, rule of law, truth, and the well-being of the common person, or you don’t. There really is no middle ground.
I can’t see it, if he means a national office. Why? He’s an ardent and outspoken Trump supporter.
Support of Trump wasn’t a political non-starter until his second term, but now the screwworm and the algae in the Reflecting Pool have higher approval ratings.
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