I can very much relate. When the war started, I expected things to develop a lot faster than they did. The big lesson for me was that everything happens a lot slower than you’d think it would. In a way it’s a testament to human ingenuity. People running Europe continue to find ways to kick the can down the road and cling to power. It won’t last forever, but they certainly surpassed my expectations.

While understanding underlying dynamics provides us with a powerful framework for comprehending how the system evolves, predicting precise details is effectively impossible. In this way, there is always room for uncertainty and surprise. A good analogy is to think of a river flowing downhill. The overarching principle is clear: gravity pulls the water downwards, carving a path of least resistance. Yet, the exact specifics of the river’s course, the meanders, the rapids, the waterfalls, are determined by a myriad of different factors, including the terrain, the volume of water, and even the weather. While we can anticipate that the river should flow in a particular direction, we cannot foresee the precise shape of its journey.