We are on this planet through no merit or fault of our own. We can suffer the arrows of misfortune or we can try to avoid them. We never can really avoid them entirely, but we can make ourselves relatively more or less vulnerable.

All the talk of gods and spirits is nonsense, of course. We have only one another, and that cannot always be the comfort we hope for. So let us accept the troubles that come, try to learn how to avoid them when they are avoidable, which often they are not, and above all stop preaching to others (which really means to ourselves, whistling when passing the graveyard). If we come to understand that no one gives a damn about us cosmically, perhaps we can accept the modest roles we have. The Buddhists perhaps have the best theoretical answer here, but the actions of Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Burma in recent days and years make it certain they are no better in practice than Muslims, Christians or Jews. Westerners look eastward for wisdom where it does not exist. As we become more ethnically diverse, we can see that Asians, Africans, and non-Europeans are really not any better in their ideas than we and certain no better in their actions. They may even be worse.

Norman Ravitch *62
Savannah, Ga.