One note I made at the beginning of the present journey seems relevant. If you arrive in a mountain meadow (there were many of these in Macedonian Pirin, including the principal, majestic one near the top of the great mountain), and you see that the trees are stunted or bent in a particular direction, you don't assume that the trees of the place have gotten things wrong from the beginning. You assume that there has been some climate or soil condition that has affected the species, that given the expected conditions, would otherwise grow straight and true. Similarly, if you arrive in a place and see that the people have a certain general character, you don't assume that they've just gotten it wrong from the beginning, and existing in the wrong manner has gotten wrapped up with basic existence in their minds. You assume that these trees have grown within a certain spiritual climate, and that this is what a tree looks like that grew up within that climate. Not necessarily in the encounters with each other; it might just be the long, quiet hours when fears rise inexplicably to the mind. Something about being here results in this type of person. That's the lesson, I think. Futile to look to genetics; genetics mends itself, that the nature of it. Nutrition is relevant, because the manner of eating is an action, and can be inflected. Exercise similar. Bad social networks are an element of it, but these arise among people of a certain spirit, and the spirit of the people is the question.
In the Old English Exeter Book, there is the story of St. Guthlac, a hermit in the muddy fens. Our civilizations have drained the swamps and built the concrete living places after decades of struggle, but stories like those of the old Christian hermits remind us that it wasn't merely a question of mud, disease, and bad air. (Though these things were rather important to work on.) We only understand a small part of what our notion of understanding suggests to us that we should in fact understand. Places have spiritual natures, and the essence of the Christian mission, as a religion of the light as opposed to one of the cultic mysteries of the shadows, is perhaps not to be affected by the shadows as they arrive, not to feel that our sense of truth commands that we be angry or disconsolate. Three are many kinds of evil in the world. Many of them are within concentrations of wealth and power. Knowing that we only understand a small part of what understanding thinks itself capable of, it is useful to remember that, whatever the prognostications, intimations, or prophecies, the day itself will be sufficient, and likely prevail.