Day 284 - musing in the office

 Today is the 4th day of the 41st week, the 11th day of the 10th month, the 284th day of 2023, and:

• "You Go Girl" Day
• Bullying Prevention Day
• Cephalopods 
• Emergency Nurses Day
• General Pulaski Memorial Day - I grew up off of Pulaski Highway in East Baltimore County, so of course I knew he was a POlish hero of the American revolution, but I bet you had to google it....
• International Day of the Girl Child
• International Newspaper Carrier Day - there have been a lot of holidays lately about newspaper delivery, but I am not at all sure my granddaughters would have the foggiest notion why 
• International Top Spinning Day
• Kof Awareness Day
• Kraken Day
• Myths and Legends Awareness Day for All Fantasy Movies, Books, and Legends
• National Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work and School Day
• National Coming Out Day - I'm old enough to remember when this was for high-society girls to be presented at a huge party 
• National Curves Day
• National Fossil Day
• National It's My Party Day
• National Kimberly Day
• National Pet Obesity Awareness Day
• National Sausage Pizza Day
• National Stop Bullying Day
• National Take your Parents to Lunch Day
• Southern Food Heritage Day
• Stop America's Violence Everywhere [SAVE] Day - just an observation, but countries can be bullies too, altho I don't think the US is the worst in the world 
• And Voyager 1 is 22h 25m 13s of light travel time from Earth

Quote of the day:
"The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention."

~ John Burroughs,  American naturalist and nature essayist

The problem is not knowing what to do, neh?  We're back to the discussion of what is within the realm of our control and within the sphere of our influence, and too much of what is happening in the world is well beyond both, which generates a feeling of helplessness and feeds despair

And when large swathes of the people begin to feel hopeless, terrorism takes root and then we are all faced with atrocities.  

I don't pretend to understand the reasons why Russia is persecuting Ukraine, or the Israeli/Palestinian hatreds, or even the radical GOP.  I don't understand the thought processes that say because YOU don't think like I do, then I have the right to destroy you, kill/rape/maim your children, and blow up your home.  But this is hardly a new phenomenon, now is it?  History is littered with stories of all those things happening - and that is just the things that somehow got recorded.   

It was Sherlock Holmes [in "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"] who commented:

"Who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads?" "They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside. ... But look at those lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser."

And without anyone ever recording what happened behind closed doors

For most of my life, I have stubbornly insisted that mankind is intrinsically good, that each person has a nobler nature, and that our default mode is to be kind to one another.  As I have aged, I've found it difficult to maintain that belief.

After all, homo sapiens is the only known mammal species that has eliminated all of our cousins - there are no other living hominids.  How this was done is the topic of much conjecture which varies widely bounding from we killed them all off to they were assimilated to they just couldn't compete with our superiority to some sort of alien intervention.  

That said,  my intention to make the world a better and safer place doesn't mean a thing unless I act in such a way in my personal life

I just wish we all agreed what "better" means and that it includes everyone.