Where Did the Week Go?

So it's Friday, and I've managed not to blog all week. Sarah's going to slap me on the "no-update losers" list again. :-)

So, let's see. What's going on in my life? I've been stuck between 275 and 280 pounds for the past two months, and this weekend I'm going to grab some sweats (nope, don't own any) and start using the workout room in my apartment complex for which I've been paying so dearly.

Impromptu (the singing group of which I am a member) is singing the National Anthem for the Richmond Braves tonight, and I'll be there, downing hot dogs and gleefully not knowing who's who again. Should be fun.

In the video game department: Microsoft's and Gas Powered Games' Dungeon Siege is hitting shelves tonight, and as I'm a big Diablo II nerd, I'm looking forward to it.

And finally, in response to Sarah's conviction that people just generally suck, I disagree. Sure, there are some heinous things going on in the middle east, Afghanistan, in the American Catholic priesthood and elsewhere, but you know what? 99.9999% of the five-plus-billion-strong human race is still getting on just fine, being decent to their neighbors, buying groceries and kissing their spouses and children good-night before bed.

I think I've established where my neuroses lie, in comparison to others. Sarah and Mary, to one extent or another, seem to think that people generally suck. Human "society" is an accident, and any bright spots you can point to in human behavior are the exception to the rule. We pollute, we're horrible to ourselves and to other species, and we do stupid things like invent guns and Twinkies. Sackcloth, ashes and self-flagellation result.

My point of view is that people are generally great once you get to know them. The human animal has progressed from kissing-cousin to the orangutan to walking on the moon, writing the Upanishads and mapping our own genome in a measly few score milennia. If we've made some detours down dead-end lanes like ethnic cleansing, televangelism and nuclear weaponry, then so be it. We got to where we are by being stronger in groups than individually, and through acting out of more or less enlightened self-interest. Human movement over the ages has been almost inevitably in the direction of better standards of living and more freedom. Again, there are eddies in the stream like Communism and the Middle Ages, but the pattern is still pretty clear.

So yeah, people are pretty cool in my estimation. It's just me that sucks. Again with the sackcloth, ashes and self-flagellation. ;-)

Have a good one,

-Rich