it was the worst of times, so it couldn't be the best of times

i went to a renaissance fair today (get your "josh is such a dork jokes out now before continuing... feel better? awesome... read on).

and it was pretty awesome in the sense that it celebrates all the stuff we think is awesome about the renaissance age and medieval times. and sure, there's a ton of awesomeness to behold. there's knights and jousting, mead and battle axes you get to throw at a wall.

there's ice cream and funnel cake which i'm sure were big hits back then. there's tons of opportunities to spend your money on stuff... clothes, weapons, jewelery and whatnot. there's rides for the kids and paddle boats. there's porta-potties which i'm sure are not such a big upgrade in bathroom technology from those times of old.

there's even stocks that you can put your head and hands in while your friends take a pic of you. tons of kids were doing it. lots of laughing. hahahaha, stocks, so much fun! but think about the stocks back in medieval times. think about all the people who were probably kept in those stocks while villagers threw fruit and rocks at them. there was nothing fun about the stocks unless you were one of the douches throwing shit.

sure, the renaissance fair is a lot of fun and no one should take it so serious. but i did leave with a deeper appreciation of the day in age we live in now.

whenever i think of the possibility of time travel or the ability to live in whatever age i want, i think to myself that i wouldn't go back in time. i think the farther back you go, the suckier it would be to adjust.

i'll think about things like the plague or lack of clean drinking water. or how the majority of people were peasants who lived in filth from the cradle to the grave. medicine back then was a joke at best. and i don't even wanna imagine what a trip to the dentist was like. if you disagreed with the wrong person, you were burned at the stake...no questions, no trial, just you burning. if i did somehow travel back in time, i'd cash my ticket back to the present the second i'd have to use the bathroom or clean myself.

sure, we got some bad shit going on right now. there's a lot of sucky stuff going on in the world. but i think where we're at is as good as it's ever been so far in history. there's no form of nostalgia that makes me wanna say, "i wish i lived back in such-and-such times." i wouldn't even wanna go back to 20, 30, 40 years ago. i can't imagine living in a time before air conditioning and facebook that i would enjoy more than now. i just don't think that's possible.

so yea, let's have fun with the past and let's learn from history. but let's not kid ourselves. we are currently living in the best of times at this moment.