Right? Right.

It's fairly obvious that there are a number of things that bother me. Little things perhaps. Or, maybe, not so little things. I think you'll have to grant me that I do think about a number of things, and this perhaps more than is really good for me, but it's hard not to.

For as long as I can remember, I've wondered why we have so many problems. For longer than I care to remember, it seems that things are just getting worse. To be perfectly honest, I don't know why. I have my suspicions, and I'm sure a lot of other folks have their suspicions too. Yet, in the end, it's just damn hard finding someone you can actually talk to about anything. I think that's sad.

Let me phrase the "problem" a little differently. If we're so smart, if we're so advanced, if we're so technologically savvy, if we're so insightful, if we're so on top of things, why do we have so many problems to begin with? Everywhere you look things seem to be broken: banks, schools, politics, government, law, corporations, work in general, child rearing ... and the list just goes on and on. Why is that? Why can't we get anything to work?

Is it really because life is so complex? I don't think so. Complicated ... I might be able to buy that, but complex? Nah. Is it because crazy ideas are being propagated at an frightening rate; that is, ideas like radical, religious fundamentalism, neo-liberal economics, or neo-conservative politics? There have always been differing ideas on how the world should be interpreted and understood, so why should it be different now? Granted, we have tools and instruments that can cause a lot more damage than those of by-gone days: biological and chemical agents, nuclear bombs, high explosives that people are willing to strap to their bodies, drones, fragmentation rounds, chemical and biological agents, and people willing to strap this stuff to their bodies. A bit extreme, don't you think?

No, I suspect we cant's get our stuff together is simply because we don't want to. We're tired of it all and just can't seem to get out of it. Last century, we tried violent mass suicide - twice (the two world wars), and when that didn't work, we tried to deep freeze ourselves (Cold War), and failing that, we've tried poisoning ourselves (pesticides, GMC, pollution), ruining the climate (global warming, crop failures) perhaps hoping to starve ourselves to death, and we even sabotaged the financial system (I think in the hopes there would be enough personal suicides to get the wave really going). And nothing seems to work. We're still here, we've still got the same old problems, and we're not one step closer to a solution to any of them than we were when we first came down out of the trees.

You know what I think? I think we're simply a pretty disappointing species ... as far as species goes. What do we really have to show for all our supposed talents and abilities. Not a whole helluva lot, if you ask me. I think we're right to want to pack it in. The trouble is, we can't even get that right.