First entry - the "Why"

So...Why. Why this blog.

I am consistently stunned at how history repeats itself, and the way the United States seems to be mirroring the Roman Empire is amazing to me. Two empires founded on noble ideas, revolutionary in progress, unfathomable in our love of violence. The end result of our current actions and converging beliefs has been laid out before us in history, by our own cultural ancestors, no less, and repeated by us again and again through the ages. Yet here we are.

In the fifth century, Alaric and the Visigoths sacked Rome. Really, really sacked it. This is pretty much considered when the Empire ended. The proverbial doctor took off his gloves, cried “damn it!” to the heavens and called the time, throwing the shock paddles to the floor, so to speak. By the by, am I the only one who could just giggle endlessly at the mental image of an army of Goths? Anyway. Really, the empire had been falling for quite a while, but it’s far too murky for history class to get into that so, 410, Alaric hits Rome. Rome falls. Plop.

But of course, it did fall for some time. And in 380, 405, 299…there must have been those Romans who saw it coming. Not just philosophers and so forth, but just folks. People who saw that some intangible peak had been crested, and that the empire was now dying, even as outward appearances might not say so. The edge of an empire in decline. Enter: me. I guess I want a place to say how things look right now. We are on course with a terrible destiny, and I mourn this, but also am strangely excited to witness it. Obviously I’ll be going on about personal things as well, but the primary idea here is looking at the U.S. through the filter of now. Perhaps writing a letter to the future to say, “some of us see it happening.”

So, after Rome had been stomped, people come drifting back to see the remains of the city. Among them is Rutilius Namatianus. He’s mourning the end of a great city, a great era. Of his beloved Rome he says something like, “Thou has made of alien lands, one fatherland. The lawless find their gain beneath thy sway. Sharing thy laws with them, thou hast subdued them. Thou has made a city of the once wide world.”

Now, I have to insert at this point, that I’m always skeptical of these sorts of quotes. I mean, come on. He just blurted that out and somebody next to him said, “Wow, Rutilius, that was really, incredibly eloquent and poetic. I'm gonna write me that quote down”?

Or maybe the actual quote was more like, “Son of a - ! Look at our town! Motherfuckers! Aw, man Rome was great! Really great! Like, really! It was like...laws n’ shit! The whole big world was, y’know, like a, like a thing. A city. Fuck!” And then some attendant cleaned it up and wrote it down.

Actually it was probably option 3: the attendant said it, and Rutilius claimed credit. You know, like that Queen in ancient China who’s given credit for discovering silk. Right. I'm sure the queen was out there boiling caterpillars, desperate for food and they came apart to form the foundation of a durable, lightweight, sexy fabric. No. Some starving commoner did, presented the new fabric to the queen and she said, “I love it! I shall discover it! Now piss off, commoner, you smell, and your gurgling stomach is bugging me.”

What was that queen’s name? Hm. I’ll have to look that up.

Anyway.

The United States has so much grandeur, glory. Founded by philosophers. Bound by ideology instead of geography. Good stuff. Yet so dearly, utterly fucked up right now. We too, have made a city of the once wide world. The entire world exists in degrees of variation from our cultural influence at this moment. Hence, “the once wide world.” That's the Why. And that’s what I'll be writing about.

That and cracking jokes, publishing and shamelessly promoting my fiction and obsessing over minute personal problems.