force of good

bh and I had a very interesting discussion last night about the state of the world. interesting that my dad recently tried to convince me of the same thing. we decided that essentially good does triumph over evil, and that the world is progressing to a more and more enlightened and peaceful state. there are however, regressions towards evil such as the dark ages, the crusades, Hitler, Islamists, many more, I am sure. we agreed that women's rights took approximately 1000 years, black rights took 100-300 years, give or take your region, so certainly gay rights will not take even that long. the stonewall riots were in the late 1960's. it is no longer a social taboo to be gay. there are certainly hate crimes based on sexual orientation, but these have fortunately become fewer and farther between, and there is federal and state level legislation set up to prosecute those crimes.
I posited that all change is catapulted by crisis, much as internal, individual change is. bh said maybe gay rights won't even take a crisis. most young people favor gay marriage and think it is really stupid to legislate oppression.
I think that I do become sad and angry about things that happen in the world. recently, some mf arsonist started that fire in CA. firefighters dead. incredibly sad. many sad events.
however, I think I am so self-centered that any unhappiness or depression I feel is merely from self-absorption, and not from feeling sad about the state of the world. I think feelings about the state of the world are a necessary burden that engage people to take action to change things. I can see that change is a very constructive use of anger and disgust. I think the only reason I have ever changed anything was due to a crisis on some level.
meanwhile, I am trying to walk in the correct direction and do the next right thing.
I waited in line to check out at HEB for a good 15 minutes. I had great victory over impatience and read People. I didn't know Jen and Vince were on the outs.