Sunday, February 24, 2008

All sorrows are less with bread

The Ancient Romans believed that all you needed to keep the masses happy was an ample quantity of bread and circuses. If people were well fed and entertained they would not cause problems. Trouble was they got too complacent and began to neglect the angry hordes outside Rome who did not have bread.

However, there is truth in the observation that a good meal makes all your worries and problems seem less pressing, but is this saying solely about the mundane matter of a regular meal? What about food for the mind and soul?

Human beings are not like animals that simply follow basic hungers: we quest for knowledge and enlightenment. We desire to know the unknowable, to reach out beyond the boundaries, beyond the stars to find the ultimate truths of life, the universe, and everything. And no, the answer is not '42' as the Monty Python humorists would have it.

The answer is still there -- awaiting the hero who will beat all the odds to take his prize and return home in triumph.

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