I don't know if I lost it or rather it morphed while I wasn't looking. It may seem like I'm depressed and take a 'way cynical' outlook on life, but it is more pragmatic than cynical.

When you see kids watch Saturday morning cartoons or spend too much time playing computer games, one laments somewhat this escapist tendency, yet knows that kids still need to develop discernment and balance and overdoing it is part of the learning process.

When I see a nation like Iran, I draw a similar parallel. Many nations may be inhabited with chronological adults, but when one ages their mentalities, their still children.

Wishing death on Sharon or wishing Israel be wiped off the map is the sort of rhetoric only a child or teenager might employ in public. That someone of this caliber could be elected President tells a whole tale about the Iranian masses.

Many nations are like that. Many people are like that. When one is young one sees the adult world as a world filled with competence and intelligence. That view is one that comes crashing down quickly. The more one studies human nature and history, the more we realize that the majority of adults still behave like and hold adolescent mentalities.

Sure, we can throw Bush in there too if you like. He often illustrates a predilection for melodrama preferred by adolescents when confronting a crisis.

So, yes when one looks at the world as a group of adolescents complaining and bickering, it can be somewhat depressing when one can imagine the same world filled with adults getting along and working productively for a better world.

The Love is not gone. It's partially masked by a parental type discipline. Unfortunately while a parent gets to watch his/her children mature after a few difficult years, the world and its nations mature much more slowly. That can be depressing somewhat, knowing and watching the same scenarios, petty hatreds, ridiculous religious indoctrinations, et al. continuing decade after decade and century after century.

Now as I watch the various 'kids' prey upon eachother on the playground, I can point out the various pitfalls each group succumbs to. But pointing out such behavior doesn't mean they won't continue to prey upon eachother.

That's when it is time to remember NO ONE can change anothers thinking or is responsible for others actions. We are responsible for our OWN thoughts and actions and that's it. If we keep those constructive and with that slight positive bias we are doing all we can for the world. Because when we take care of ourselves, we are changing the world for the better in the only manner such is possible.

Once one feels one has to save the world or one's country, one has to remember this maxim - the only person you can ever truly save is yourself.

So don't let my little dissertations disturb you. The love's still there.

;-)