Well, I thought that I had seen it all when foreign relations were defined as how well one could see a country from across an inlet...then Wall Street collapsed...entirely. And it seemed at that point that the whole world began falling apart in bits and pieces. And then I went outside and looked at the cloudless night sky pierced by a million stars; a night so clear you could see the ghost trail of the Milky Way; and suddenly, I swear, nothing seemed all that important to get into a bunch about for the rest of my life.

    Now don't get me wrong, I love being a shrilly about certain issues as much as the next person. I just don't tend to really seriously dwell on a lot of it with the sole intent to make myself and everyone around me miserable.

    Well...there is one exception. Bluntly put, we are killing our innocents abroad and I am tired of it. That pain in my heart will never fade or diminish until the world - yes, I said "the world" - begins to understand the concept of peace. It really isn't all that difficult, after all. If everyone took one moment to step outside and see a variation on the same sky I did, would they not feel that immeasurable smallness in the face of the real universe above and around us? Would they not feel humbled in the presence of God, or whatever name your religion gives your Creator, as you stand in nature and the vast universe that is all around us yet which we so blithely ignore? I mean really, is it that hard to imagine? I smile because I know it isn't, no matter how much of a shrilly one insists on being at any given moment.

    And why is it so hard to step back out of your life as you know it today and remember happy times from years ago? I have no idea why all of this suddenly occurred to me, but it's true. Deep down we all enjoy laughing more than crying. It's a universal. One tempers the other I suppose, but give me a good conversation and a lot of laughter and I'm good to go for a looooong time.

    And why are people, so many people, deathly afraid of having fun? Must you really work all the time and do nothing more? Do you define yourselves by how others see you? I sure hope not. Hope...it exists and is a powerful force. The fact one can live past the age of 30 these days reflects hope that became a success. Yet still we have truly defied our own sense of hope by dwelling on the awful things that happen in the world. Every day we are bombarded with it in the media. X killed Y or Z jumped off a building. It's dreadful, awful stuff that feeds itself into one long, drawn-out, self-fulfilling prohecy...called reality t.v. Joke...not really. ANYWAY...we watch. Know why? My theory is we figure if someone else or a situation can be quite so awful, our life, no matter how horrible it may seem, is only vaguely dramatic and not quite so bad by comparison. 

    I find that being an optimist is really not such a bad thing after all. And it's amazing how many will jump all over that attitude with total negativity...they'll even say, "you're wrong." Wrong? Say what? How can one be wrong to have hope for humanity, a lot of faith, and a true belief that when you stand in nature you see the face of God reflected everywhere and it is so achingly-beautiful as to make one cry sometimes? How on earth is that a bad thing?   

    So by all means, call me an optimist. Call me a blatant...hoper. I don't mind. Because as long as I never see the day I turn my back on a fellow human being because they look, worship, think, or behave differently despite differences of ideology and opinion, I will wake up every day with hope. And hope is a good thing.