We've forgotten so very much.

I can't ever fully recapture my past. Not that I'd want to. Much of my past I can't even remember. I heard a brain specialist the other night speculate that we retain only a relatively small percentage of our experience. For instance, a genius such as Einstein maybe retained 14 percent. So I suppose at least 90 percent of my experience is lost and gone forever. Maybe even 99 percent. So my recollections are vague. And I don't even have Alzheimer's. Little wonder that we humans are stupid. Because we are so forgetful. We don't learn nearly enough from experience. Therefore, we keep making the same mistakes over and over. Some of us even keep voting Republican. We forget what George Bush and the neo-conservatives did to us. Wrecked the economy. Got many of us killed and maimed in senseless wars. Allowed our nation's infrastructure to deteriorate and to, in some cases, literally disintegrate. Put some 40 million of us into abject poverty. And hordes of us without jobs. Pretty disgraceful situation, isn't it? But already we've forgotten that we are living in misery. --Jim Broede