Disheartening

The worst thing about growing old is not that your bones ache or your memory lapses or a youth-obsessed culture pushes you into the shadows -- no, it's that you've lived long enough and observed enough human behavior to realize that our species learns nothing from past mistakes; that the darkest moments of history repeat themselves. I fear we are approaching such an encore performance, what with the McCain/Palin campaign egging on our worst, bigoted crazies; the consequences of economic deregulation raining down in a firestorm; extremists of every brand winning the fight for minds as an enlightened educational system becomes more and more marginal; the consequences of global warming just beginning to come into play. The new Dark Ages that Andre talked about in My Dinner With Andre, which seemed theoretical in the present tense of the film, doesn't seem far away at all today.

And yet there are huge crowds of enthusiastic citizens who want and see something better in the future. Our better nature isn't giving up without a fight.

I have no idea how all this is going to turn out. But we can't get by "by the skin of our teeth," to use Thornton Wilder's phrase, forever.