Next

Typically, I do not post about personal events on this blog, but today I'm going to make an exception. Theoretically, you only get married once, and I think it is a momentous enough occasion to warrant a post, as it will be my last with this name and social status ("single").

As is the nature of such things, I don't imagine the process will change between now and the next post. That's the way life works. Milestones appear and disappear, are overleapt or crossed or smashed to smithereens, and we just keep going down the road, waiting for the next to appear so that we can say we have passed and marked that next mile in our journey.

Sometimes, if we're very lucky, we have the opportunity to make a choice between roads. To stop and turn or keep ourselves straight, to take the "scenic route" instead of the multilane freeway. Or, if we're particularly creative, to pull over, step out of the car, and strike out into the middle of nowhere with nothing more than what we can carry on our backs.

Sometimes a detour takes us back where we started, sometimes to where we would have ended up anyway. And sometimes, we find a waterfall, a cave, a canyon, at the end of our offshoot. Sometimes we never again return to that old path and are left to wonder what surprises - or not - it held.

Sometimes, we backtrack. We take one look at that rickety rope bridge and say "screw it." And sometimes, when we say that, instead of walking back we jump into the river and see where it takes us.

Road less traveled my ass, Mr. Frost. If there's a road, it's been traveled. Maybe "less" than other roads, but you, sir, are a rebel in sentiment only. If you really want to do something interesting, get off the road all together.

Now I'm a fan of the road, be it paved or dirt or even (much as I curse them) cobblestone. I use the roads in my life frequently. But every now and then, I get off and see what's going on in the ditch or the field or the forest.

This milestone, however, is firmly in the middle of the normal highway of life, and I'm okay with that. Contrary as it is to my nature to do the "normal" thing, this is one of the "normal" things I'm happy to do, a part of the highway I'm glad to travel. After all, striking out into the middle of nowhere is more fun with someone else along for the journey.

Written by the Victors

In learning about history, one of my favorite things to do is dig up the little-known or "losing" side of the story. The story of the witches burned by the Inquisition, of the Spiritualists and atheists in the nineteenth century, of the Germans in WWII, of the unspoken and unsung.

That is not to say, of course, that the history written by the victors is unimportant. Or that written by the allies of the victims. But there are always more sides, more facets, to the gem of history than first appear visible to our biased gaze.

There aren't often true "villains" in history, people who truly just want to make others suffer. There is always some grain, some tiny glint of altruism or idealism that offsets the dirt and grime and corruption. Much as we hate to admit that people like Hitler, like bin Laden, have some sort of good, it is something that we should admit.

It is something we should admit not to justify their actions or excuse their cruelty, but to better understand ourselves and our own motivations. If we can see that they - the mysterious, proverbial "they" - have a modicum of goodness, then perhaps we can see that within what we see as our own virtue may be a kernel of darkness.