Friday, January 23, 2015

Light vs. Dark

On my Facebook feed tonight I see news reports about politicians filing bills to allow parents to obtain conversion therapy for their homosexual children under the age of 18, politicians saying that they don't believe in science because "God can overcome those so-called facts in the blink of an eye", fundamentalist Christians being suspected of stealing the statue of a Celtic God in Ireland, the continuing widening of the chasm between "left" and "right" and the politicians who are so caught up in "winning" that they have forgotten that they are there to make the lives of our citizens better, and personal stories of things like a doctor misdiagnosing someone with blood clots in their lungs as just "needing to lose weight" and almost killing them.

It is really hard at times like this to remain optimistic about humanity.  But I try.  I make myself remember the many people who contributed to help me start my business on the ever-widening path it is currently traveling.  I make myself remember a group of people sitting in a hospital waiting room, patiently waiting turns to go in and sit by the bed of a sick friend.  I make myself remember people donating hundreds of dollars to charity on the pretext of seeing someone fall backwards into a huge mud puddle.  I think about hearing that SAPA has collected a couple of hundred dollars in just a few minutes to help one of their own who blew a tire on the way home from faire and didn't have the money for a replacement.  I think of all of the rescued animals who are now pets in the homes of so many people on my friends list and how those animals will be warm and dry and fed and loved.

It is a finely balanced tipping point, the point between optimism and pessimism.  I just have to believe that more people are like the good ones that I have the honor of knowing, than are like the ones we read about in the news.  The good ones just don't get as much publicity.  I HAVE to believe that, otherwise ... as Dr. Horrible says... "Any dolt with half a brain
Can see that humankind has gone insane. To the point where I don't know if I'll upset the status quo if I throw poison in the water main."  That isn't the place I want to be.

Be good, people.  Be good to each other, be good to strangers, be good to animals.  Just be good.  Let that goodness spread out from you and warm the world around you.  The more good there is shining in the world, the less chance that darkness will overcome.