Ide-ling: "I didn't see it coming!" So taxing.

"With Friends like this..." It's hard enough to be on the lookout for potential foes; one should not have to be wary of one's friends, associates. Since around 44 BC, we have learned differently. It's so tiring, taxing to have to be on guard constantly, "watch your back". I thought friends were supposed to "have your back" but, as Julius Caeser discovered, entrusting himself to his buddies in the Senate was a fatal flaw, as there were a trifecta of terrible trustees present that day, March 15th, the middle of the month -- "Ides", who became the original backstabbers. They had a lot of company, it turns out. Psychologically, of course, we all want to be able to count on our friends; at least know they won't stab us in the back when we aren't looking, most vulnerable. Won't kick us when we are already down. Won't add insult to injury. Finally, in today's lingo, won't throw us under the bus. Ouch. But we can all relate to Caesar. And, in all honesty, we've probably all been on both sides of this. It's so taxing. And to make things more complicated, perplexing, taxing, turns out, according to fact checkers of the day, that the so-called soothsayer that uttered "Beware the Ides of March" may have been an example of early Hollywood editorial license, as the truth of the sooth, the omen was something more like "be wary of the next 30 days..." a caveat proffered around the Ides of February. 

Looking Out: being on the lookout, or looking out for the next generation, an idea we can all "get behind", at least in the abstract. But, many generations, in the future, looking back, will wonder who was backing them up, when they see what debt they have inherited, DEBT that seems so abstract itself, which was in no small way attributed to something our own congress, "friends" in our own Senate, refer to as an "Ominibus" spending bill, which to the generation that finally has to reckon with what we ourselves truthfully owe, will likely refer to as "Omni-bust!" 

Sur-Rendering: As in our own rendering of backstabbing, that of the generation way into the future we may are now failing to back up. While we, ourselves are wary about the next thirty days, when the Ides of April will be upon us, before we know it, and we will wonder, until we get the final tax bill, what we may find ourselves having to "...render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" The sooth was selling truth.

It's so taxing, tiresome. Psychologically speaking.