17 November 2023

Finally Friday, this week felt longer than normal thanks to a fussy baby. She may have gone through a cold, had a stuffed nose, cutting new teeth, or all of the above. I had to go to the post office a couple time to chase down a package delivered to the wrong address and the baby was fantastic. Some adults can’t wait in line for a half hour without throwing a tantrum, though we did have plenty of pens to stay entertained. The post office is a strange beast, some how everything there seems incredibly slow and broken yet modern mail is a marvel. In letters between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson they were writing about their hopes for the post office in the future, people might receive mail 2-3 times a week. There is a cynical attitude in the modern age, my theory is because so much has been accomplished for humanity at this point that the difficulty in attempting something new scares people into not trying at all and sarcastically claiming it’s stupid. People from the past, who were also human, it’s easy to think of past figures from a different world, those people would be amazed at the wonder that is the modern west. And that everything is working all the time, the electricity almost never goes out, clean water flows from the tap, we even have internet in the woods. When I study America’s founding fathers, I feel Newton’s quote that we are standing on the shoulders of giants. Not only were their limitations greater, but they did more with what they had. Ben Franklin started the first library by collecting a list of books he and others owned, so they could borrow from each other and it was a subscription service. Some people tear down giants of the past because they’re an uncomfortable reminder of our short comings, my pursuit is to overstep them. First I learn from them.