The Ravings of Demented Rabbits

Interesting Times

Well, I finished David McCullough's biography of John Adams last night. Call it 3am. Good times. It won a Pulitzer, and for good reason - it's a very informative book, while being a good read in the bargain. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, and came out more knowledgable for it. Can't say better, I think. Go forth, acquire it, if you've got any interest in the subject at all.

So, Adams lived in some very interesting times, in the Chinese sense of the term. '76, the Revolution, the diplomatic troubles of a new nation, serving in the almost useless VP spot, and finally as President in his own right, and then doing the whole Cincinatus thing. Quite a life. Quite a life.

Me, well, I get interesting times in another way. As of 7:55 AM, I've been up, listening to guys replace our roof. This 50 year composite stuff had better be worth my sleep deprivation. John Adams? Worth it. Watching T1/T2 back to back? Worth it. A new roof? Maybe. I'm so going to want a nap.

So, back to Adams. Yknow, all during the 90s they used to throw a lot of shit around about how my generation is sort of...disconnected. Those of you what've seen Fight Club know the drill. To quote Tyler Durden: "We are the middle children of history, with no purpose or place. We have no great war, or great depression. Our great war is a spiritual one. Our great depression is our lives." Yeah, that about sums up the 90s. And I always used to sort of regret that, in a way, how the 90s were always going to be sort of like "The Roaring Twenties, Episode II" and all. Our great-grandparents had the First World War. Our grandparents pulled the Second. Our parents had Vietnam and the Sixties. The great movings of history. And us? We got the decade of decadence. And history major me kinda regrets that.

But, yknow, listening to the President last night, and reading about Adams, I was thinking. That's over. It's not a profound realization, such as it is, but we've got our own interesting times. We've sort of noticed that since 9/11, though it's been true even in the fairly boring 90s. Our generation, I think, will come to be defined by Iraq, by the War on Terror. In a good way or a bad way, I haven't a clue. But we've found our war, and probably found enough war to last us the rest of the decade and beyond. Because the way I see it, this war is going to be a long war. I see us being forced to confront Islamic terrorism for a very long time, and if we run away from that they'll blow us kicking and screaming right back into that fight. People talk about when we're going to pull out of Iraq? We're stuck there, kids. It's my thinking that we've found the next Cold War, the new Vietnam, at least in duration. I dunno what it means, exactly, but I know this much: we look at a guy like John Adams, and we say "Wow. This guy lived through a lot. He lived through 1776 and the American Revolution. He was there for the birth of a nation. He lived to be Vice President and then President, and he was instrumental in setting up the nation. He saw the Louisiana Purchase, he saw the War of 1812. He lived through quite a lot." Whatever else they say of us in that regard, they will say that we lived through the fall of Communism (even if some of us were a tad young for it), they will say that we came of age during yet another of the great ideological conflicts of the last century and a half.

Interesting times, indeed.

And because I happen to like this quote from the book, I'll, well, quote it:

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geometry, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study paintings, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."

---John Adams

Posted by Dwip at September 8, 2003 9:59 AM