Are we all Crazy/Angry

"It's an old and ironic habit of human beings
to run faster when we've lost our way."
-Rollo May

This weekend, John Stewart and Stephen Colbert are hosting "rallies" at the National Mall in Washington, DC. My brother is going.
The "Rally to Restore Sanity/Keep Fear Alive" actually is very indicative of our country. This summer, I saw something interesting-- America rocks. Just don't watch the news or ask politicians. If you do, you'll see America as hateful, divided, intolerant and dangerous. Here's what I saw: a country that was warm, embracing and inherently good.

So what happens? We let the minority dominate. The failure of our democracy might be that we don't hear the majority. The screams, threats and fear mongering of the minority is what most of us hear. And in turn, it shapes what many of us believe. We are a society that has allowed ourselves to be driven and shaped by fear.

I read a fascinating article a few weeks ago in the NY Times about how irrational a society we are as reflected by our parenting. Parents over worry about school shootings and kidnappings (which I don't wish on anyone) when statistically their children are more likely going to get involved in drugs, become obese or injure themselves playing soccer. The most dangerous activity our children do everyday: get in cars. The rates of accidents and injuries in public transportation is much lower than in personal vehicles. If you really wanted to keep your child safe, you'd be better off putting them on a bus or even an airplane.

Fear drives us to be irrational. It causes us to scream and shout while forgetting to think. Fear builds walls. If we could learn to look past it, we would see lots of great things and people that were missed because our eyes were shut, ears were covered and we're yelling too loud.

A Convenient Truth

This is not so much an endorsement or indictment of a candidate as much as it is to illustrate the point that when it comes to opinions, our opinions can often be fluid according to what we want it to portray. Whenever you are dealing with fanaticism, you only hear the things you want to hear, believe the things that you want to believe. In many ways, the biggest danger to all of us is extremism. Whether it is political extremism, to the left or right, religious extremism or some other idealogue, extreme fanaticism causes a twisting of the truth to where we cannot differentiate the truth from lies.

One thing all extremism has in common-- liberal, conservative, Islamic, nazi, Christian: If the lies you are telling you believe to be true, then you cannot be lying...