Lately I've been noticing changes in society - both short-term and long-term. I recall, when I was a kid, overhearing adults proclaim (not to me but to each other): "Things never change. The window-dressing of a store might change seasonally, but it's still a clothing store. Thus with society and the world."

I wondered if those adults were right. Although I often argued with adults when I was a kid, I did have a habit of believing them. Later, in my twenties and thirties, I realized that those adults had often been wrong. They had truly thought they were right, but just didn't know. The problem was, they'd talked as if they had known for sure.

Reality has a way of hiding in plain sight. Your passive observations can easily fool you if you don't actually think about what you've seen. People have a habit of believing what they want to believe; the habit of self-examination is rare. It's just all too easy to believe the other person is wrong, if you disagree.

Each person having their own reality - well, that's all fine, as long as they can survive. However, if your survival is not guaranteed, you need to know the truth. As Attila the Hun said: Bad news is the most important kind. The good news can wait.

Here is the point: when changes are happening, those who don't notice can have the rug pulled out from under them. Even worse, adults who don't notice the changes will give their children the wrong information. The threat of change, really, is that what the adult knows may not be right any more, so the kid cannot depend on the parent for advice. Therefore, change can cause upheaval in a society, because the kids may not survive if they try to live as their parents showed them.

In personal life, change is usually based on someone changing their mind. They don't want to be with their spouse any more, or they want their friend's husband or wife all of a sudden, or they've decided their best friend is boring. It sounds silly - and it is! Yet marriages break up and long-term feuds can begin over such whims. When these people have power - such as royals used to - people might get murdered in their beds and wars can start.

A show my wife watches is Game of Thrones. I watched one episode, but couldn't take any more. It's my same problem: the show is too realistic for me. The characters' ruthlessness and the dungeon of corruption and deceit they can't escape from I find very threatening, because I know people really are like that. I just don't need to be reminded....

Here's Kit Harington from Game of Thrones. As you can see, he's a fetching young buck.

I'm glad to be back, and I'll talk to you again soon.