“May you live in interesting times” is a saying that some theorize is based on an old Chinese curse. Not sure why it’s a curse but it made me wonder, aren’t all times interesting?
Sure, we have technologies and transportation wonders that weren’t even the stuff of dreams in the 1700s. But look what happened in the 18th century: people in Boston threw a tea party (an event that figures prominently in today’s politics), the Declaration of Independence was written, Napoleon Bonaparte took power, Alaska was discovered (although I doubt the native people there knew it was missing) and the Industrial Revolution began in England.
These are indeed very interesting times we live in – and they were back in the 1700s and just about any century you pick. Each has been interesting in its own way, punctuated by aspiration, invention, curiosity and discovery. That’s what makes history enlightening, and the future so promising.
Think the people of 2251 will look back and consider us cursed?
