A Post Modern Middle Ages

As time marches forward a lot has changed. Whether we look at advances in technology and medicine or cultural shifts like women’s rights we see change everywhere. However it is good to remember where we came from so that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. Let’s take for example a comparison that many might consider a clear contrast, today versus the Middle Ages, also known as the Dark Ages.

Medicine and technology aside, how really different are we? How have we really changed? With the fall of the Roman Empire, the breakdown of communication and the rise of fiefdoms with their stone walls to keep out marauding pillagers how do we begin to relate? It doesn’t take much to see that even in this age of social media platforms we witness daily the breakdown of real face to face communication. We now have created new fiefdoms of “lefts”, “rights” and “forwards” hunkered down behind their ever rising ideological walls built as much to defend their ideas as to keep those within from ever seeing the light of a new perspective. 

To Skin A Cat

It is always good to step back every once in a while and remember that we are not the center of the universe. I know, shocker right?! No matter how self aware or open minded we are we all get caught up in our own little world after a while. It takes a real conscious effort to break away from this natural "self gravitation" and to see our real place in this universe, just a small planet more often than not wandering in circles.

Often when "self gravitating" I find myself seeing things in black and white or better said in terms of "me" or "not me". Reality however is much more rich, varying and beautiful. There are a million colors between and unless we break out of this "self gravitation" and fall into proper orbit we will not see them. We need perspective and we will never have that unless we stop relating everything to ourselves and see the universe of others out there. When we begin to take ourselves too seriously it is always good to remember that there is "more than one way to skin a cat".