Guest, Regular,

Much of what we feel has to do with the size of the boat we feel we're in. People who are in a canoe can have much more control much more quickly that those in an ocean liner. The world got more immediate than it ever has been before. Today, we can watch five minute updates on the status of Mount St Helens; we can get hourly updates on news events; we can get responses from people 12,000 miles away in a flash. We now control very little of any of these events. And we also seem to think that our votes don't really matter. But hey, who said they ever did? Who said we matter at all to anyone except maybe a few folks who love us or care for us? I have never been important to anyone except maybe my kids. What does that show for 57 years of life? But on the other side of that there is the realization that maybe being loved by only a person or two is not the end of the world. Maybe it's the beginning of one. And maybe today is the day you take Ellenpoly's advice and read jOhn's threads, because he has a whimsical and strange--yet neat--view of this world and about how sometimes humour can take the edge off some heavy stuff.