anywhere and everywhere

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Funny how we choose one thing as an entry point to everything else. Look at the academic tomes on Beethoven or the American Revolution or ... well, pick your poison. Each of them taking a newish tack on an already-existing sea. The sea doesn't seem to mind.

I once read 200 or more books about the Russian Revolution. Each had its own tack, brought a new prism to old facts. One that made the best-seller list in its time focused on the hemophilia of the tsarevich (crown prince), the maternal concerns of the tsarina (queen)for her son, and the influence of the wily spiritual adviser, Rasputin, over the tsarina. Rasputin's enemies felt that his influence over the tsarina gave him indirect and undue influence over the tsar. It was a nice, sexy approach ... Rasputin was a wonderful and wicked character and maternal concerns for an offspring are touching, so there was a nice hook for regurgitating the Russian Revolution. The argument struck me as a kind of 'because of the nail the shoe was lost; because of the shoe the horse was lost; because of the horse, the rider was lost ... because of the rider the war was lost ... all on account of a horseshoe nail.'

Just because we pick a particular approach, a particular tack, a particular nail, a particular way of addressing some wider 'everything' doesn't mean we can lay claim to really nailing down that 'everything.' It's OK to start anywhere -- really, anywhere at all -- when addressing 'everywhere.' But 'anywhere' is invariably limited and 'everywhere' is not...

Just like 'anywhere.'
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