Lately I’m reminded daily of the saying about folks forgetting their history and having to live through it again. I Googled it. Turns out, it’s actually: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. It’s from George Santayana’s 1905 work titled Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense. 

Then 45 years later William Shirer included the quote as an epigraph in his literary work The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich in 1959. Apparently, that book was extremely popular when it was published which accounts for the popularity of the quote.

Anyone who is baffled by how humanity occasionally seems to willingly turn against its own best interests now has a front row seat to observe the process in great detail. Here on the Islands we feel that we are insulated from what happens across the rest of the continent. But what we are going to experience in the days to come may merely be a delay.

This reminds me of another saying that I recall from childhood when riding on the big ferries during rough weather: one hand for the ship, one hand for yourself.

Get ready to hold onto your hats folks! We just might look back on these days as the calm before the storm.