Yes,

... tonight, despite the fact that I have much to do ...., I took the time to watch a movie. The movie, “Color of Freedom” was the nearly entire story of Nelson Mandella’s (played by Dennis Haysbert) incarceration in South Africa, his trials and tribulations over 27 years, and ultimately his release and rise to become through free and fair election .... the President of South Africa. It was a stirring tale well told, of not only his struggle, but the struggles of both sides of apartheid - the good and the bad - and those caught in the middle, the very human struggles of all the peoples of South Africa. In that regard, it was intense and exhausting to watch, and as one might imagine it was long - but it had to be as long as it was in order to do justice to all the milestones, all the people and characters (and their families) who played such important roles in the positive outcome, the only outcome that could have been ... positive and just. It was told through the eyes of the prison guard early on in Mandella’s incarceration assigned to keep a watch on him and to censure his mail (and that of other prisoners in Mandella’s close association within the ANC).

As I grow older and reluctantly wiser in both American and world history, I realize that knowledge, true knowledge doesn’t come to us in ‘school’, but rather in life, and even then over many ... many ... years. And, history does repeat itself ... over ... and over again - in ways we cannot recognize when we are young. I suppose that is the natural ‘order’ of things. I look back now and wish, rather foolishly perhaps, that I had just been more ... attentive.