Also, an area that interests me - and it will probably take years to state what I mean - is the period of the rise of democracy, with Tom Paine, which is around the turn of the 18th century into the 19th. ↗
I'm not on the run from anything and I'm not at all clear about what I'm running towards. But as some great writer put it, I want to be certain that when I arrive at death, I'm totally exhausted. ↗
It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace. ↗