Learning From History – A Rant

One of the aspects of the New Year’s season that I dislike the most, aside from the obligation to congregate in herds at parties, is being expected to converse pleasantly with the attendees.  I don’t mind parties at our house as I can simply remove myself either to the office downstairs (aka the Home Office) or the shop and work on a project...and I have been known to do so. Yes I am a solitary rather anti-social type who has been lucky to have found a wife who can tolerate my rather, at times, rude behaviour.  I don’t blame myself for my attitude; people like me seldom do, the problem is with those who refuse to stick to conversations and opinions well within their own knowledge and comfort parameters.  For example I don’t attempt to converse about sports, entertainment, automobiles or motorcycles and or their repair.  I don’t know about these topics and quite frankly don’t care.  In my defence I will stand by and listen with feigned interest, a glass of cola in my hand to provide the visual mistaken assumption that partial impairment is the reason for my glazed over eyes and not mind-numbing boredom.  Inevitably at sometime during this personal purgatory someone will wander into my areas of interest, one being history and its associated politics.

In such rare moments the dragon awakes!  The mind sparks to life, eyes glisten with interest and the senses near salvation at the prospect of fresh meat in the form of an intellectual discussion.  The first comment has been answered with the disappointing, “No one wants war” and then “If you don’t learn from history you’re doomed to repeat it”.  It looks like their arsenal of knowledge on the subject has been spent and now they are starting to withdraw to a safer topic.  But no! They have wandered into the sanctum sanctorum of my mind, my lair; like innocent lambs and they will not suffer me to allow them leave unscathed.  To the statement “No one wants war” I reply that someone must want it as we sure as hell are engaged in them often enough.  In regard to learning from history I throw out the challenge for the fellow to support his statement.  I can see the fright in their eyes, smell the fear; they are mine, mine I tells you, and now I intend to destroy them utterly and completely.

It’s about now my wife swoops down like an angle from the heavens and brings with her a sense of peace and calm, changing the subject to the relief of all but yours truly. They have no idea just how lucky they were, unfortunately you dear fellow member know all too well, based on my other blogs over the past year.  I do feel a twinge of remorse for you having to read these pieces, but then upon contemplation, it could simply be a touch of heart burn.

I’ll close off this tongue-in-cheek blog now and let it stand as an introduction to more serious discussions within the next few weeks on the topic of learning from history, or the inability to learn from it. 

Happy Year to all, from the Home Office, deep beneath the ground in New Hamburg, Ontario Canada

Brian