Go Human Beings!

Elaine:  "I will NEVER understand people."
Jerry:  "They're the worst!"

If, like me, you have ever had to utter the sentence "Excuse me, but could you not clip your toenails on the bus?", you might understand my frustration with my fellow human beings.  A casual observer of this blog might go away thinking I'm an irredeemable misanthrope, but that's not (entirely) true. Yes, during the average day, I scold strangers for various offenses, but it's only because, well, let George explain.

The thing is, though I sort of hate people, I love humanity, if that makes any sense.  By any criteria, we really are the worst- millennia of religious oppression, warfare, tribalism, sexism, and yet... look at all the good stuff!

Some guys with crappier tools than you have in your garage built this. Respect.

The first time I went to France, we went to Reims, ostensibly for the Champagne, but I also wanted very much to see the cathedral.  It is truly magnificent.  It fills me with awe and wonder, as it is intended to, except I don't see the glory of God, I see the glory of man.  People built this church 800 years ago!  With no heavy machinery, no computers, nothing but the simple tools available in the dark ages. It's positively mind-blowing.

Beautiful, non?

It pays to remember that we measly little humans built everything with just the stuff we found around us.  Every bit of technology started as matter, and was adapted by someone with a big brain and a lot of curiosity.  None of this stuff fell from the sky fully formed; we built the Parthenon, we built the Hubble telescope.  From the pyramids to the International Space Station, the wheel to the Mars Rover, people made these things, and did it DESPITE the warlords, the oppression, and the fanatical dictators.  If that isn't amazing, I don't know what is.

I try to remember this when some jerk blows cigarette smoke in my face on the sidewalk.