"You know, and what their goals were for li- And I think the short answer is they were identical to us, which is why we can understand them. It’s why you should read things. It’s why you should read the Meditations because this is not just some dry whatever talking to himself in a culture that you cannot understand and can never recreate. It’s a human talking about being human, you know? And I think human nature has not changed, and I don’t think human nature will change. So we are flawed and broken, and we’re… that’s, that’s the human condition. We’re gonna be flawed and broken. So I don’t think… I actually think that’s the great, that’s the great question of history. If you wanna understand history, you have to know about human nature. What is our human nature?"

"Yeah, that’s the question, isn’t it? I… The short answer is I subscribe to the great man or great woman theory. I think there’s moments—I can’t imagine the Protestant Reformation. I don’t think you can just swap out Martin Luther and have a Protestant Reformation. I don’t think you can swap out Augustus and have the Roman Empire. I mean, there are… I don’t think you can swap out Genghis—and so on and so forth. I think ultimately these impersonal forces are insufficient for explaining, because we are people. We are humans. We are, you know, everything is kind of a relational thing. And but at the same time, you know, the moment needs the man, but the man also needs the moment, you know?"

"Honestly, I think it’s the end of the world, and I don’t think they were wrong to think that. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says the night before Lindisfarne, the monks saw sheets of lightning in the sky in the shape of dragons, and this was obviously meant to foreshadow the dragon ships coming up. But if you were brave, then you got taken to the House of the Dead, which was Valhalla. Every day you would fight, and whatever wounds you got would be magically healed that night, and then the next morning, you’d get up and do it again, so you’re essentially practicing for Ragnarok, the final battle. You know, there’s this poem by Tennyson, Ulysses, my favorite poem. I think it captures the Viking spirit."