Humans will be human.

When you study history in any context, it becomes clear rather quickly that, well, history tends to repeat itself. Mostly, if you ask me, because humans are human, both in the best and in the worst meaning of this.

If things are getting tough and scary and there's not enough to go on living as one did before, there's always a good chance that someone will get the idea that a war is the best solution for this. After all, it means you have a clear-cut enemy now who is, if in doubt, the reason for everything going wrong. Also one could just, well, take their stuff, since it's war. Easy way out. (Also a rather stupid way out in most cases, as it's not really a way out, but if you are reading this blog, I probably don't need to explain this to you.)

On the other hand, when something happens - a natural desaster, or a death in the family, or an illness, or another of the endless possibilities how one's life can be upturned - it can well be that friends and family and complete strangers suddenly stand there to help and support as best they can. There's been outpourings of help both financial and with time and labour after almost any catastrophe.

So where am I going with this article? Actually, I only wanted to write a preamble to this link to a rather, um, manly find from medieval Bryggen in Norway. Because some things, well, they just do not change, and that includes the wish to have some fun occasionally, and with help if necessary. Humans will be humans, and human ingenuity has never stopped at that, which the find is beautifully proving, in an anatomically correct and not too short way. (NSFW, just in case you haven't clicked on to this yet.)