Restless Night
It's 2:34 as I begin typing this post.
2:35.
Why am I up still when I have to be up at 8 a.m.? Your guess is as good as mine.
At first I thought perhaps it had something to do with the random act of violence outside the door of the home where I live. Someone decided to smash in a car window with a brick or rock, I don't know, but I had Chris call 911 after he went to investigate the noise and yelled down at the perpetrator.
Such events usually have me getting all philosophical in my head, with thoughts of identifying society's ills, debating them intelligently and somehow bringing about change.
Crazy, yes. Reasonable and real solutions, perhaps.
But I now think it has something to do with the tea I had not long after 11 p.m. It was mostly white tea, which my understanding is that it's not got the same caffeine kick as black tea, but it would seem it does. I have a feeling I'll be needing some tea throughout the remainder of my day when I am at work.
The tea break this evening interrupted my viewing of a very enlightening History Channel documentary,
Inside Islam.
As Islam was presented, i wasn't far off base with my understanding. But, put into a historical context, I now more fully see the ramifications of the nation-building that Western Civilization has done in the past 150 to 200 years.
While I hardly excuse the senseless violence or rise of extremism, the empires covered Northern Africa, the Middle East and points further East only came tumbling down very recently, when compared to empires such as Rome.
I pick that far back, because whereas the British and French empires remained in tact where they began, it was the base of the Islamic empires that were uprooted. The former Roman empire deteriorated and ultimately lead to the Dark Ages.
The British and French empires merely lost their peripheries, and in many cases violence, injustice and what not ensued. Just look at Africa today.
More importantly, many of the people who were put into power when the Islamic empires ended, and when colonialism from Western powers ended, it was the corrupt who took control, leading to the problems we now see today all over the Middle East.
I would say let this be a lesson, but lesson hasn't been learned and other past wrongs are still working themselves out. The former Yugoslavia is an excellent example.
If you've got Netflix, or any rental service with History Channel documentaries available,
Inside Islam helps to explain many of today's questions, dilemmas and atrocities that the fill the newspapers and airwaves.
2:49, and I'm still not tired enough to fall asleep.
