Rainy Days and Rainy Souls.

It's been a while, and I even feel like I'm forcing my hand a little here. It's been raining for the past week. Winter is approaching and days are getting shorter. While there is something dreary about it, there is alternatively something very comforting about it. It almost makes you feel like you've stayed in bed all day. Under the risk of sounding cliche, it made me think, I feel much the same on the inside right now, the same as it looks outside my window. Initially the feelings are unpleasant and hard to handle. You spend your time hoping that the sun will peek through and the rainy days will be only a distant memory. You begin to feel cold and drenched. Soaked to the bone with problems you don't want to face or think about. Realizations that bring up more questions you would rather ignore. The torrents of rain that wash away that top layer of mud and show the rich, or malnourished soil beneath. Too much and your roots are exposed, drowning in flood waters or scorching in the sun. The rain has two sides. We often see it and live in the negative side of it. Problems have much the same effect on us. The rain seeps through the soil, it nourishes the plants, flowing into rivers and streams quenching the thirst of animals and men. We cannot survive without it. It enriches the soil, it grows our crops. Problems often make us better for the ware. We become more well-rounded individuals. The passing of hardships nourish our soul, shaping and forming us into stronger, and more empathetic individuals. They teach us how to get through the next day. They expose to us, and others what we truly are. Sometimes it's a flood, but droughts can be more devastating, leaving our pools shallow. Sometimes it's hard to keep your footing in a down pour; but when the sun comes through, the world is a beautiful place.

When the odds are stacked against you...

Sometimes you are faced with those moments in your life when you look at the situation at hand, and realize there is no solution. I have found myself in more and more of those situations lately. I can safely say that they are quickly becoming my least favorite types of situations. They are not usually ripe with drama like confrontations, but are the slow burning kind of problems. It is very difficult to determine the best course of action in such situations. Sometimes you know that confronting the problem will only lead to more problems. There are some people that just refuse to hear, or refuse to be wrong. Trust me when I say having the ability to fess up to your mistakes is a enormously positive character trait. People being what they are, this is something that completely goes against their nature. I think our current government has a great problem with this vice. I'm not here to say I have never fallen victim to it myself, I have I am quite sure. I can be a fairly willful and prideful individual and it takes a lot of effort and five or six glasses of water to swallow my pride.

The whole problem has me thinking about human nature. If you have ever read any philosophy, or literature worth its salt, you will find comments everywhere through many works about human nature. The theories and feelings on the subject are as diverse as the writers themselves. There are two basic views, man is good, or man is evil. When I say Human nature I mean more specifically the human "State of Nature." Human "Nature" itself can mean a lot of things, are we animals like Darwin suggested? Are we spiritual beings? Or are we simply products of Nature? I think you all know where I stand there (Spiritual). I am not referring to those particular questions. I have been focusing on the idea of, if man is left to is own devices and decisions are the choices he makes innately good, or bad? Granted some choices (like about what to have for lunch) are neither. But a choice like, do you take your neighbors land to expand your own, or do you steal his crops because it is the easier way to have a full belly are good or bad. I happen to hold the view that men with no guidance or rules are innately bad. We are self-serving and lazy. If you would like to say, well I'm just not that way at all, I am a good person, I would tell you to reinspect your motives for being a "good person." There are thousands of variables that go into why a person believes what they do about human kind and how the behave in a state of nature. I highly recommend that is something you should research and develop your own educated theories about. As people we have the ability to know a lot of things inside and out. We struggle endlessly to understand ourselves. It is more difficult to understand a thing or situation when you are in the midst of it than when you are observing it. I feel the same about these conundrums I find myself in, perhaps I cannot find a solution because I am caught up in the midst of it?