Perhaps it's fitting that nature too seems to be steeped in thought and memory in sad recall of the dreadful world wars when nations succumbed to the anarchy of reason in favour of imposing another world order on populations that suffered immense privation and loss of life. Today is miserably cold, overcast, with a nasty, blustering wind suitable for the recall of grief and disbelief.

By the time the First World War ended it had been declared the war to end all wars. By the time the Second World War came to an end, countless more human life was pointlessly wasted.

One could argue, and correctly that the Allied powers managed to subdue the Axis fascist  plan to dominate the world with the German Third Reich at the pinnacle of that vicious power. There are those few still living who recall the poison gas and trench warfare that wasted innumerable lives when common men were ordered by their political masters to answer the call to 'duty' on behalf of the mother- or fatherland as the case might be.

Now, we set aside a day on the annual calendar so that the sacrifice of so many who never returned from the battlefield can be solemnly recalled. We honour them for their courage and endurance in facing the dreadful hell on Earth that becomes a theatre of war. For their determination despite their fear, to respond to the threat of annihilation of freedom and liberty. In mourning them we declare that the last war would indeed be the last war.

Yet the deadly malevolence that lies deep in the hearts of some will never be stilled, and there will always rise within the ranks of the powerful those with that strange chemical attraction we name social charisma, to broadcast their ideology of hate, distrust, resentment and violence and in the process attract followers sufficient to sweep nations into belligerence and sabre-rattling.

This is the story of humankind throughout the ages. People of good will are present in abundance, but it seems the good will they exude cannot match the strain of ill will that can be attributed to an evil lurking deep within, struggling to escape the bonds of civilization.

There are adequate grounds for pessimism in a world where science has achieved much of value and alternately much that adds to the strength of the threats that humankind musters against itself. With the proliferation of nuclear devices with the capacity to inflict death and destruction beyond imagination, we entered a more lethal phase in human history simply awaiting opportunity.

Opportunity is there in abundance, robbing those whose imaginations run rampant, of peace of mind.