I read for two reasons: to be amazed and to be sheltered. Stone’s Fall, by Iain Pears whom I very much love, I sheltering in its vastness. One of my favorite periods in history, expansively portrayed and explained. Massive and immediate and all-consuming.

Reading things like this, though, I begin to wonder if maybe the motivating factor behind most conspiracy theories isn’t hate or narrow-minded was even, but simplistic fear. If you assume that people are in control way up there somewhere, even if you think they’re evil and hatching nefarious plots, they are people, like you, and can be understood with time. Maybe believing evil people are in charge is more comforting than thinking that there’s no one at the wheel, that we’re careening down the tracks with nary a thought as to where we’ll end up, or even if the tracks have been laid yet to get us there.