I'm sorry if I sound irrational, but I have to express myself...

[Warpy]

47. It helps to develop a long view

Real changes don't happen in years or even decades, they proceed in fits and starts over centuries as reforms are enacted, rich men get them overturned....but a few always slip through and are permanent.

Case in point: the Peasant Revolt of 1381. Read their demands, they sound rather timid and entirely reasonable and most are things we can take for granted now, yet they were unacceptably radical in their time. This is what I mean. A few reforms did sneak through and a few of those were permanent and added to over the centuries.

While I sincerely doubt the arc of history bends toward justice, I do see slow progress over a long period of time. The problem is that we're the same people who have put up with the intolerable in the past, just because we were doing OK at the time. That's why progress generally happens as a result of one disaster or another, and why it is chipped away over time.

I said a long time ago I wouldn't believe in justice until I saw the Kochs and Mercers in a pitched battle over a moldy slice of pizza out of a dumpster. That's not going to happen and if it happens to future heirs I won't be here to enjoy the spectacle. However, their empires and pretensions to aristocracy are only temporary. Reforms after the next crash will outlast them.

In the short term, it helps me to look at the villains and realize I'd rather see them than be them. I would hate to live my life that twisted up with greed and spite and ignorance, missing 99% of what is happening around me.