Too Much

The last couple nights I've been waking up around 3:00 a.m. wide awake. I sneak downstairs and try not to disturb Barb too much.

It's quiet and a nice time to think.

Last night I got a really strong flashback from my college years. It was about violence, violence around the world, and how it has always haunted me.

I was pretty sheltered growing up. My parents kept us away from the news and I'm thankful for that. There really is no reason a 10-year-old needs to know all about the Vietnam War.

But later in high school, and especially in college, I immersed myself in studying social issues and how humans interacted with one another. One thing that formented strongly in my mind, and truly often disturbed me, was the amount of hate and violence in the world. It was too much. When I really started to study the world around me, one big thing I learned was that it really is a cruel world we live in.

I couldn't understand it.

For me, the benefits of peace, love and understanding were as obvious as the benefits of breathing, of life itself. Yet there was war and killing and hate everywhere.

Africa was enslaved, and humans sold as goods. Then over half-a-million died in a war to reverse the tragedy. There has always been fighting and needless violence and death, completely non-sensical acts really. Blankets were given to American Indians purposely laced with small-pox. Individuals commit horrible acts of cruelty to others. Why?

It's always haunted me. I don't understand why.

One thing I do know. And one thing that has always kept me going, and kept hope in my heart. There are more good people than bad. There are more good people with love in their hearts and souls then there are people filled with hate.

Sometimes you have to look around. Good people do not make the news headlines as much as bad people. But they are out there...everywhere...and they still make up the majority of us.

My struggle with cancer has really shined a light on all of the good people around me. It has made me more aware also of all the good that does go on in this world, quietly and anonymously. It does a lot to reduce the hauntings of hate in this world that have always baffled and confused me.