Guilt

Generally speaking, I don't do guilt. I have regrets, of course. There are probably millions of little decisions spread across my life that I wouldn't do again, given the same or similar circumstance. There are very few things that I would alter though, at this point looking back. My life has turned out pretty well, and I wouldn't want to change the way things have turned out for me.

To quote William Adama from Battlestar Galactica, "you live with it." I sincerely believe that the golden path is to carry them with you enough to learn without letting them overpower you, and without letting them pull you backwards or get you stuck.

Star Trek V was a pretty bad movie. It did, however, have some great bits. I particularly enjoyed Captain Kirk's response when Sybok offers to remove his pain. Our pain molds us as humans. The key is to use the pain as a lever, not to avoid it, disavow it or wallow in it.

Having said that, I've had it pretty easy. My life hasn't been 'charmed,' but I haven't really suffered either.

There are a few points of gnawing guilt that I will admit: there's always more I could be doing to conserve the environment, and the division of resources in our world is inherently unfair. In other words, I have more than I deserve, and I cause more harm than I need to. There are plenty of justifications I could offer, but none would really alter those two fundamental points.

Map of Humanity

I found this amazing thing yesterday. The url says it comes from www.joeydevilla.com, but I didn't see it on that fella's blog.



This reminds me of my relationship with maps in general. Topographical maps sooth me. I can literally feel my blood pressure drop, in a good way, in an almost spa-like way, when I have a good map in front of me. This comes, at least partially from my time in Explorer Search and Rescue as a teenager. Navigating with map and compass was one of the earliest real-world and useful things I was good at. We spent many nights running along behind a black lab who was chasing a scent. There were no GPSs then; it was up to us, with flashlight and map to keep track of where we were so we could find our way home. Good times.