People who have been "driven over the edge" by the events of the past few years - November 2021

It's November of 2021, and as promised I'm reporting what I'm seeing nowadays, living through an interesting time, which as you know is a curse. And today I'm thinking of people that I describe as being "driven over the edge" by the historic events of the past few years.

As a history adventurer, and time-traveler, I know that how I describe events gives you, dear reader, an insight into my point of view. If I were writing this in the early 1860s, and I was describing something that I called "the War of Northern Aggression" you would know which side of the Civil War conflict I stood on. By the way, my family fought on the Union side, for the north, just to clarify.

And these days you can tell by a description whether I believe that COVID-19 is just a hoax, or if there's been widespread election fraud, and the list goes on and on. Dealing with this is enough to drive just about anyone "over the edge", if you know what I mean.

But of course this is nothing new. When I was a kid in the '60s and '70s many people were driven over the edge with worries of nuclear war. They built bomb shelters stocked with food and wondered why everyone else wasn't making those kinds of preparations. But my favorite thing that I'm sure pushed a lot of people over the edge was the attack on Pearl Harbor, and beginning of World War II. Of course you could argue that World War I was just as frightening, and people reading about the execution of the royal family in Russia must have had a lot of people just waiting for the collapse of civilization as we know it.

In December of 1999 my next-door neighbor was horrified as she waited for the new millenium to bring terrible things, which including planes falling from the sky, and for her, the Rapture. She was an elderly widow, living alone, and I remember going over on December 31st, knocking on her door and letting her know that I was right next door if she needed anything. There really wasn't anything I could do then, or now, for people who are frightened about things like that, but I can at least be reassuring, and be there.

I've lived for over six decades now and I've lived through a lot of things, and as I sit here more and more spring to mind. And then of course I've always been fascinated by history, and stuff that happened before I was born often makes me think that it would have hardly seemed rational to just go about your day as if nothing were happening, like during the Black Death. "I'm going into the market, does anyone need an apple?"

Like I say, I wish I could help, and I wish I could say that they only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but that's not really true. There are a lot of terrible things that swirl around us, there always has been, and there always will. To me, it just seems right to look at them, try to understand them, and resist being pushed over the edge.

I hope this helps. I'll report back again soon, I promise.