I solve World most days in three moves, occasionally four, I have had multiple 100+ consecutive days of solving the NYT Crossword and, my newest daily distraction, Word Play, tags me “genius” every morning before I jump in the shower.  I guess I’m being shamelessly boastful about my puzzle-solving prowess, but, on balance, I admit to being fully aware that these frivolous activities add nothing beneficial to the human condition.  So, after my shower, (which I do not take for granted, knowing the millions to whom such an extravagance is not an option), I approach my day with the intention of making something in the world better.  I have no illusions of reversing global warming, ending hunger, poverty, homelessness or war, but I truly believe that any random act of thoughtfulness can be the butterfly wing-flap that makes something fairer or kinder somewhere.  The conundrum that I cannot solve or even begin to locate on any part of my moral compass, is why anyone would purposefully do the opposite.

Let’s say that the concept of GOOD vs EVIL is a thing.  To begin with, EVIL has way better PR.  The most prevalent, loudest, unrelenting streams of media fodder are the horrors packed upon horrors of manmade and natural treacheries heaped on humanity.  Today, more than ever in history, the whispers of GOOD shoulder angels can barely be heard over the cacophony of bad and then much, much worse news.  The part that my puzzling mind cannot solve, is why so much of that EVIL seems gleefully deliberate.  Have we really come to a place in time where the bullshit biblical struggle of Satan and God has manifest into the abject moral bankruptcy of politicians, religious quacks and street thugs vying for supremacy over those who believe in simple human kindness?  I can think of no other explanation.

At my house, we’re participating in No-Mow May to help increase the pollinators and maybe, just maybe promote the butterfly flap that tilts us back in the right direction.