The Creature at Our Gate

Fair to say that since we first came to being and maybe even before, humans have told cautionary tales. Eventually gifting those to the stars, with the telling and retelling reinforcing mystic belief.

The Greeks are legendary for their thrilling moral tales filled with dire lessons. Boy, there were a lot of ways to go badly wrong for a Greek, no matter how well-intentioned.

During the early 19^th Century, the Grimm Brothers earned their name. The 20^th Century of War later brought us Lovecraft’s fearsome Others. After which Orwell reminded us there's only one genuine monster astride the Earth and we're it.

The core lesson in this staggering array of cautionary tales, delivered unto us across all the great diversity of human cultures and their respective times, is ever the same:

Don’t invite the beast. Woe to us, if/when you do.

Now we’re somewhere well beyond all the ancient palaver. That stands manifest as in ruins.

Still whispering in each other’s ears, except gathered around a transformationally inclusive campfire, with yet another in the apparently endless line of creatures banging at our gate.

Many among us clamor to feed it. And this beast so little different than the old. Go figure.

Cultural pride bound to nostalgia is a hallucinatory drug. A bitter tale, sweetened by bits of true blue romance.

Truth is, especially given our awful long way to go as to make anything like a good end, we’re today collectively closer to great than ever before. Even despite the long-term costs of perpetual maintenance, against sorely stacked odds.

Don’t let the creature in. We know how that story ends.

And it never ends well.