{"id":20865,"date":"2011-04-27T08:13:21","date_gmt":"2011-04-27T14:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=20865"},"modified":"2011-04-27T08:13:21","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T14:13:21","slug":"thought-for-the-day-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/27\/thought-for-the-day-perspective.html","title":{"rendered":"Thought for the Day: Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>No one can understand history without continually relating the long periods which are constantly mentioned to the experiences of our own short lives. Five years is a lot. Twenty years is the horizon to most people. Fifty years is antiquity. To understand how the impact of destiny fell upon any generation of men one must first imagine their position and then apply the time-scale of our own lives.<\/p>\n

— Sir Winston Churchill<\/strong> (1874-1965) British statesman and author.
\nHistory of the English-Speaking Peoples<\/em>, Vol. 1 \u201cThe Birth of Britain\u201d (1956-58)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I try to keep this in mind when considering politics, and the glacial movement of causes that I believe in.\u00a0 I think of the seemingly endless eight years of George W. Bush, or how it seems that Glenn Beck has been spouting his zaniness forever, or even matters like marriage equality and the like.<\/p>\n

And I realize that such durations, taken from an historical perspective, will be mere blips.\u00a0 Fifty, a hundred, two hundred, five hundred years from now, the antics (not to mention the names) of 99% of the folks in the news today will be long-forgotten, or summarized in a few paragraphs outlining political events in North America in the Post-War or Pre-Flood or Some Other Bigger Perspective Label Era.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I have to live with it all now<\/em>, day by day.\u00a0 “A hundred years hence, none of it will matter,” may or may not be true, and it can provide a bit of perspective, but the pain it causes me, and the direction it pushes that history in, fraction of a degree at a time or not, is very immediate. A century from now, nobody will know which way I drove to work, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to keep my eyes on the road.<\/p>\n

The reverse (which Churchill is actually talking about) is also true.\u00a0 When we read in history about a tyrant’s reign that lasted “only” ten years, or a period of war between two countries over fifty years, we chalk it all up to something that happened between 1348 and 1402 and it seem like such a small thing.\u00a0 And it is, to us, but it was a lifetime (or two or three) for the people who lived through it.<\/p>\n

Or think of the period between WWI and WWII — something that seems a mere blip, but was 21 years long — and encompassed flappers and the Jazz Age, Prohibition, and the Great Depression.\u00a0 Telling someone in the middle of the era that history was just taking a pause before the next big war would be foolish.\u00a0 Heck, we think of six years as being a trivial period — but in Churchill’s case, I’m sure his political exile “Wilderness Years” were hardly trivial to live through, and almost certainly seemed endless.<\/p>\n

(via WIST<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No one can understand history without continually relating the long periods which are constantly mentioned to the experiences of our own short lives. Five years is a lot. Twenty years is the horizon to most people. Fifty years is antiquity. To understand how the impact of destiny fell upon any generation of men one must … Continue reading “Thought for the Day: Perspective”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,9,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal","category-politics-law","category-wist"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/winston-churchill.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":44054,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/01\/war-and-remembrance.html","url_meta":{"origin":20865,"position":0},"title":"War and Remembrance","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 1-Aug-14 2:15pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A very thoughtful essay by +Yonatan Zunger. Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it -- but sometimes those who remember it to well never leave it behind.Reshared post from +Yonatan ZungerThe flow of time is inexorable, and in some lands, it flows faster than others. America is,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11887,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/01\/08\/affirmative_fiat_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":20865,"position":1},"title":"Affirmative fiat","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 8-Jan-08 2:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in my debating days in high school, \"affirmative fiat\" was the assumption that the proposed legislation by the affirmative side (the one debating in favor of the resolution) would...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32652,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/28\/school-shootings-arent-a-modern-problem.html","url_meta":{"origin":20865,"position":2},"title":"School shootings aren't a modern problem","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 28-Feb-13 10:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The message that a lot of folks have pushed out there is that we have all these horrible school shootings because ... well ... the modern era sucks. Kids are raised on violent video games, violent movies make people all violentified, the decline of religion means we have a bunch\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13558,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/17\/those_darned_educated_cat.html","url_meta":{"origin":20865,"position":3},"title":"Those darned educated Catholics","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 17-Nov-08 6:58am","format":false,"excerpt":"They're just bollixing up the entire church for everyone else. At least according to a UK Catholic Bishop. The Rt Rev Patrick O'Donoghue, the Bishop of Lancaster, has claimed that...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31101,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/01\/computers-and-elections-a-history.html","url_meta":{"origin":20865,"position":4},"title":"Computers and Elections: A History","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 1-Nov-12 11:01am","format":false,"excerpt":"Nice look back on the use of computers to predict elections on Election Night.Reshared post from +Guy Kawasaki(Thu02) The story of the first time a computer was used to predict an election result.http:\/\/www.npr.org\/blogs\/alltechconsidered\/2012\/10\/31\/163951263\/the-night-a-computer-predicted-the-next-presidentMore on Politics: http:\/\/politics.alltop.com\/(Shared using #DoShare) Google+: View post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1184,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/03\/remember_the_ma.html","url_meta":{"origin":20865,"position":5},"title":"Remember the Maine!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 3-Oct-01 3:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Several weeks ago, Rev. Bonnie at our church gave a sermon about how we deal with bad things that happen to us. She related it to some bad things in...","rel":"","context":"In "9-11"","block_context":{"text":"9-11","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/9-11"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}