Laudator Temporis Acti

Dear Mike,

'Got to have positive thoughts to start your day right' according to Amy Twain, self-appointed 'self-improvement coach' dealing with 'self-esteem issues' helping people to become more 'self-confident' (pandering in other words to the self-obsessed).

Well here's a thought for you to start the day right from archbishop and archcurmudgeon Wulfstan:

'Beloved men, know that which is true: this world is in haste and it nears the end. And therefore things in this world go ever the longer the worse, and so it must needs be that things quickly worsen, on account of people's sinning from day to day, before the coming of Antichrist. And indeed it will then be awful and grim widely throughout the world.'

Leofan men gecnawað þæt soð is: ðeos worolde is on ofste & hit nealæcð þam ende. & þy hit is on worolde aa swa leng swa wyrse, & swa hit sceal nyde for folces synnan fram dæge to dæge, ær antecristes tocyme, yfelian swyþe. & huru hit wyrð þænne egeslic & grimlic wide on worolde.

Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (1014)