Gadarene

"headlong; precipitate"

"The rush of the Gadarene swine" is a phrase meaning to plunge or rush headlong into something, gadarene is derived from a Biblical story. Predictably, it's a word with some message other than its direct meaning. The implicit moral is not to plunge headlong into things; something Epimetheus, with his infinite aftersight would recommend. Only in retrospect, of course.

But whether it's swines possessed by demons making a gadarene rush into the Sea of Galilee, or some decision made in haste, how do we know that Epimetheus, the king of after-thought, is so wrong?

In Greek mythology, Epimetheus was the god of afterthought and his brother, Prometheus, was the god of foresight. When creating creatures of this earth, Epimetheus gave all the good gifts or fur, claws, etc. (a dubious classification of good and bad by today's standards) to the animals and had nothing left for man. So, his brother stole fire from the immortals to give to mankind. The moral of the tale is foresight is better than after-sight.

But is it really? Did Epimetheus's headlong rush into his gift-giving turn out to be correct. Perhaps leaving Prometheus to give a better gift was Epimetheus's plan afterall. And, Epimetheus is certainly not the brother chained to the side of the mountain as a punishment.

So, is Prometheus a hero because of his great foresight? Is a hero built on things like foresight? Well, swimming with superhuman skills to save people from a bursting dam has much better theatrics than preventing the dam from bursting in the first place. And theatricity has is place in the definition of a hero; Achilles sulks, Hercules has marriage problems, and many heroes bemoan their lives repeatedly. So, perhaps after-sight is the preferred predicament. It's certainly worth considering, when making cynical remarks about the next fashionable gadarene rush.

No Rest for the Weary

-a saying relating to continuing despite tiredness.

Yesterday, I experienced this, when before going running with the swim team, I realized that I forgot my running shoes and had to bike half an hour to get them, then run for an hour, and then swim for an hour. There is indeed no rest for the weary.

But, outside of my microscopic existence, is there rest for the weary?

Anyone who reads the news lately would have to think very carefully before answering. It's an unrestful world out there. Perhaps it's because the world is becoming full of unrest, or perhaps it's just because I never read the news when I was little, but the more I look at the outside world, the more weary I become, and the less restful the world gets.

The pope is causing unrest, there is hellfire in the UN, and a Turkish novelist is put on trial for fictional insults. Is the world really so unrestful, or is this normal? Are popes supposed to be saintly and agree with everyone? Is the UN always supposed to be a cohesive, harmonic organization? Haven't novelists always been criticized for one thing or another?

History is littered with controversial popes, like Alexander V. The UN's goals are beyond my political comprehension, but they're doing a better job than the League of Nations. Banning and burning books is a common occurence throughout history, for a variety of reasons. And, people like Salman Rushdie, Marat (who had to hide in the sewers of Paris), Galileo (house arrest), and even Machiavelli (exiled) have all had trouble due to their writings and ideas.

Perhaps all that's happening in the world is that people are standing their ground - standing with things that they would logically stand for. And, because it's a big old world, they happen to be standing against other people, who are also standing their ground. So, all in all, they're all just people with backbone, trying to preserve their own ideas. Perhaps unrest arises from the weariness of a peaceful existence? Perhaps, in a few decades, we'll run across a quiet decade and finally find rest for the weary.

Drawing Blood from a Stone

-a phrase meaning that you can't extract something that never was there

But don't we try to do this all the time? In North America, we have lots of "historical", heritage places, which we treat as though they were the site of the battle of Trafalgar or the coronation site of ancient kings. We call them museums. We boast of owning things of great historical importance and we claim to have a long and tumultuous history. Or at least, so it would seem from the way we teach them in schools, during the mandatory history class.

But, are we trying to draw blood from a stone? Are we trying to draw history out of a place that is too young?

When a land is young, historians are not necessary because the history of the land is still considered current events. Eventually, when these events fade out of memory, we require professional and amateur historians to remember. But there must of some gap between being a current event and being history. Is today's news tomorrow's history? Well, let me ask you this, is 3-day old bread a historical artifact of how life was 3 days ago?

It's a bit of a ridiculous idea, but it does give some insight as to what is considered history and what isn't. Events and things enter into the realm of history at the changing of an era. If you lived at the onset of the plague in Elizabethan England, I'm sure your 3-day old bread would be a historical artifact of stupendous importance. But, to bring things here to Waterloo, is a 90-year old farmhouse a historical place?

90 years is not very old; people and turtles can outlive that farmhouse. After all, Stonehenge and the Parthenon are eons old. Can we justify classifying all these relatively modern objects as historical objects, such as a 90-year old farmhouse? Or are we just lowering our standards to fulfill our subconscious requirement of historical depth? Are we so bored with our short history that we're drawing blood from stone to create more?

The point is, history is written by victors, but more importantly it is written. It is written after victories, conflicts and other clashes of interests. By Marx's philosophy, this is the same as saying that history is written after the changing of an era. Although the books that says this regrettably gave birth to less pleasant philosophies, it still gives us a basis for classifying history. And recognizing when we are drawing blood from stone.