Looking Back, Looking Forward

About a year ago, I dreamt about another man's dream, interpreted by yet another man. I remember quickly recording my thoughts. At that time, I was already thinking about how a great king might fall into the trap of wanting the riches of the world more than anything else.

It is from this image that we retain one of the many long-lasting phrases that the translators of the King James Bible left to the English language: 'feet of clay'. The statue that appeared in Nebuchadnezzar's dream may have had a head full of gold, but its feet were made of clay and broken iron. That is why it was so easily deposed by the rock that hit it.

That dream, of course, was unique to the Great King alone. But it was seen by me as a fitting image for the kind of despotism that a particularly gifted human individual can, with all good intentions (good being a self-righteous and self-centred presumption), inflict on his fellow men. As the Other Guy told me today, "That man is a lot like Robert Mugabe."

We'll see how events unfold. I will not elaborate on why the Other Guy thought that this man was a lot like Mugabe, except to say that the Bioluminescent and I were impressed by the depth of the analogy as we sat sipping our coffees along the Road of the New Village.