Surfriders

My mentor was reading from "Gargantua" yesterday in our little literature group on Lotus island. Rabelais ( b. 1483 d. 1553) was an Eminent Elderly Eclectic Gentleman ,lawyer, cleric, physician and author. The point Rabelais addressed was the popular view, wrongly attributing the great movements in history to leadership individuals. He asserted that populations began movements at a critical time for change, and the leadership arises as a result of the movement. Such a role is, as a surfrider catching the right wave, seeing the wave develop out at sea, anticipating and picking it up at just the right time, standing and steering the board through the violence of the wave, avoiding getting ahead of the wave and taking a tumble. All waves eventually come to an end on the shore. When we think of Stalin, Churchill, Hitler, JF Kennedy, both the good and the bad, they caught a wave at a critical time of change and managed to stay afloat for extended periods, sadly for Kennedy and Churchill before the wave crashed. Whether Devil or Messiah, we probably, as Rabelais suggested, attribute too much to the individual and not enough to the population shift , however subtle in the first instance. Nothing changes! Everything changes!