From the Awesome Conversation

One theme is change and has to do with outgrowing old ways and adopting new ones . . . but on a civilizational level rather than personal; and the other may involved Moscow’s perfidy, if that, in efforts to encourage and sustain the feudal and tribal political and social arrangements and identities that account for the brutality and corruption of dictatorships attached to cultures left behind in geopolitical time. The 9/11 crews, for example, were still fighting the “crusader west”.

Related Online: Anachronisms, Rivers in Time, and Time Bubbles

If Time were a Surface, one where cultures and religions, among other things, have their wellsprings — and boisterous young years — and their deltas — with years fading into abandonment, one could map multiple lines, start to finish, for the gods, tribes, kingdoms, and states — and the attitudes, beliefs, and prayers and rituals once embraced.

The three pieces cited below may at first seem disconnected, but each has to do with recovering or sustaining something installed — conflicts, ideas, relationships — in the past and no longer quite so necessary to the stewardship of Earth and the survival of our species (with the exception of diminishing our numbers with fire).

Harrod, Andrew. “Craig Considine: Islam’s Muhammad Shall Overcome Racism.” Jihad Watch, February 2, 2021.

Schindler, John. “Exploring Al Qaeda’s Murky Connection to Russian Intelligence.” Business Insider, June 10, 2014.

Sheth, Sonam, Skye Gould, and Grace Panetta. “What we know about Paul Manafort’s connections to Russia.” Business Insider, August 1, 2018.

Above and in the order presented: a contemporary Constantine despoils the syncretic pablum that would diminish a long-standing rivalry with Muhammad’s troops; an explorer on the East-West Sea (a place in Time) suggests Zawahiri’s strings have been pulled by Moscow; and, yes, there was collusion but to be found in relationships and activities beneath them, not in deals.

So, for the future, how may Christian zealots and Islamist fanatics reach their deltas?

Well, they might wear themselves out while having made careers of their conversation — why stop today or tomorrow or in the next 35 years? The quests of each have become institutions — for as long as each may open wallets — and there’s money to be made defending and passing along dogma irregardless of its relevance to other than itself.

As for “authoritarians” or “political absolutists” — the criminals of politics past and future — they’re snagging money in their maneuvers — and most ruin their surrounds while aggrandizing and prettying themselves.

“Anachronisms” would seem things no longer fit to contemporary circumstance and concern.

“Rivers in Time”, as suggested, would be the channels carved by something young at one time — energetic, full, and moving heaven and earth — and later no longer strong but diminished and dispersed.

“Time Bubbles”?

In such Regions in Time we collectively but separately sustain and replay old battles, stubbornly stick to our guns, and confidently believe we’re getting somewhere while going nowhere until one party or the other — or both — find ruin and leave their children or others to find them in history a page or a footnote or not vanquished but vanished.

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