SierraNightTide wrote:
No one has to read they're local city newspaper to know that all of us live in a fucked up era. It surrounds on a daily basis no matter where we go or how hard we try to remember the good things and good people in our lives. Some people have overlooked the malevolence so well that they themselves become part of the habitual life. Others are so overwhelmed by the hate and grief that they are terminally depressed and become one of its victims. The rest of us find structure just outside madness and the rare few creates symphonies within it that builds positives out of the negative and the heinous evil.
I honestly feel that this era is brighter than any before it. Sometimes I feel like people who don't recognize this have a lack of perspective. Lepers, for instance. Seen a leper lately? There are many, many fewer lepers than there have ever been. This is great! Prosperity and opportunity are at all time highs across the globe. Diseases are being cured faster than they are emerging. Maybe, just maybe, the local newspaper's sensationalism about murder, rape and theft is not a clear view on just how bright and cheery the world is... because compared to the dark, hopeless shithole it has always been in the past, the present is bright. On the whole, very bright. Doesn't mean there aren't all kinds of terrible problems on planet earth: war, genocide, poverty, disease. But they've improved massively. We need to keep this in perspective. I have recently been in Cripple Creek, Colorado, a lot. People say the old buildings are haunted, because for years during the gold rush the murder rate was more than one per day. This is a tiny town. That kind of environment is now unthinkable across most of the globe. Wow, way to go humans. For each act of madness, there are many acts of sanity. For each act of hatred, there are many acts of love. If it were not so, we would not still be here. |
