Weltschmerz

Life can often seem overwhelming. There's always "bad" news, always deeply troubled souls to pass on the streets, always something more that could be done to ease someone's pain (or so I want to believe). For anyone who loves people and is even remotely aware of only some atrocities being committed the world over - the utter stunting of human development and destruction of human productive capacity - notions of goodness and justice indeed have a quixotic, if not foolish, ring to them. In trying to make sense of it all and to understand and embrace a philosophy of life consistent with a belief in the equitable humanity and innate productive capacity of all, I find my understanding wanting -- greatly.

I suspect others share in these sentiments to some degree or another. I guess that's why religious fatalism works for so many. Perhaps it's why many are so unmoved by the selfish orientation of our nation, our culture and institutions, our "values" and "principles."

Or perhaps my premises are wrong. Maybe the idea of an equitable humanity is naive. What evidence is there for such a notion, other than what I've come to understand as a Judeo-Christian interpretation of God's law? If this is so, many, many other questions abound.

Seeing people suffer pains me beyond words I'm currently able to express. Racism, in all of its varied manifestations, no doubt plays a major, if not most central, role, directly or indirectly in why so many lives never approach anything close to full productive capacity. Yet, racism, I'm starting to believe, is really but a symptom of a much deeper and more powerful human malady -- selfishness. For such, I know of no ready cure.