Writing objective history or raising a teenager may be like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall, as those and other challenging tasks have been popularly analogized.

Until today we have not made much progress over Democrit who postulated that it is only our unability to register and explain a great number of fast events in a non-linear way, i.e. not according to the principle of cause and effect.

[Nathaniel] Hawthorne in one of his books records a remarkable personal encounter with this weird fox-fire, and one which cost him dearly. He was on a journey by canal-boat, which had stopped en route for a brief period at midnight. During the interval he had stepped ashore, and was decoyed into a neighboring wood by the bright glow, which proved to be a fallen tree ablaze with phosphorescence. In his surprise and interest he lost all account of time, and thus missed his boat, … Almost any damp woods, especially after a rain, is likely to disclose its fox-fire, but it occasionally appears under circumstances where we little expect it.

The roots of the pyramidologist or pyramidiot probably go back to the time the pyramids were built, but their flowering arrived with the antiquarians of the 19th century.