What's that old definition of insanity--doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result?

Does 50,000 years or more of aggression, killing, and genocide; religious war, political war, ideological war, revolutionary war, genocidal war, territorial war, war over resources, war over ideas, war over beliefs, invasions, barbarism, ethnic aggression constitute an unmistakable pattern?

I am leaning more and more toward Arthur Koestler's belief that man is a failed and flawed chimera due to the rapid "brain explosion". We are poets, artists, mathematicians, explorers, inventors, story-tellers, lovers, haters, blackards, murderers, bigots, gladiators, mercenaries, missionaries, priests, executioners, warriors, bomb-makers, environmental desecraters, sad, poignant little animals all rolled into one. We cannot and will not overcome our nature any more than an ape or a horse or a bird. It is what it is. Evolution is a fact. In the course of time evolution has created a plethora of chimeras and we are but one. The world is unimaginably old and man stands on the stage but a second or two in the lifetime of gaia.

I expect we'll see more of the same. I've decided it's time to choose how to live with that. We have an inherent ability to self-delude ourselves into thinking otherwise--hope, faith, wishing. How else could humanity survive this long when the same play is enacted generation after generation?

George Bush and his ilk will be one among legion of men who rose to power and proceeded to levy it against his fellow man for personal gain or ideology. This is not a new drama. Every sinister character needs a supporting cast. Nancy and Harry and Amy and Hillary and Bill and Petraeus are the Shakespearian counter characters in the unfolding play. Tragedy? Comedy? Pathos? Why do we love Shakespeare so? He told the eternal tale.

We did not willingly or knowingly join in it. We were born into the play and guided by events and machinations generations in the making. We cannot blame ourselves nor a handful of ideologues. We cannot find anyone to blame because we are all to blame and no one is to blame. Free will is overhyped.

Self-flaggelation feels good for a while and then it begins to hurt and seem pointless. By all means we should continue to write and speak and protest and howl and wail and carry on each according to his or her part. And we should continue to believe it matters and continue to believe it makes a difference. It may, temporarily.

How else can we go on?

The gods are deaf, dumb, and blind. And it's a brilliant and beautiful fall day. Life is what it is.