Don Quixote

I am listening to the great novel, "Don Quixote", by Cervantes. This book is so funny at points that it was dangerous for me to drive while listening. So far, I'm about 1/3 way through. The book was written 400 years ago and again proves that we "modern" people really aren't so modern at all. The humor in Don Quixote reminds one of sit-coms and modern skits and jokes.

Don Quixote - the character - is a madman, driven mad by his total immersion in chivalric books of the period - the adventures of knight errants. He had read so many that he thinks they are true. In Cervantes time, those books did exist and were widely read. That's why his novel was such a success as a parody.

Now that brought to my mind the modern youth and young people's fascination with computer games. As time has gone on, even young adults now play those games like zombies. Those games have quests and fighting and all sorts of aspects of the adventure stories parodied by the book, "Don Quixote".

Perhaps some young people are also being driven mad by these computer games ? Certainly examples of such exist. Young people becoming so immersed in delusions of quests cannot be good. And the demeaning aspects of life in those games with the endless killings, shootings, and more. That's really horrible. Some modern movies do portray people living in delusions derived from computer games.

So all this was seen by Cervantes about 400 years ago. Are we really modern or just the same people with new technology.

I think much of what people think as "new" is a recycling of ideas known 100 to 400 years ago. I'll give more examples of this in future blogs.

PS: Ms. Market needs a rest. These endless "worries" are getting silly. What kind of data do people expect is a "slowdown" ? Nothing has changed. The Fed needs to do what I say - cut rates to a truly neutral or low neutral level around 3.5%. They still have tight money in place. really stupid.