“Headlines: Engrossed in the news” Photo by John Ragai (CC BY 2.0)

Help save us from destroying ourselves in nuclear posturing, territory battles, political clashes that lose their ideological virtues faster than the death toll rises. Our human nature prizes winning so much that we unhesitatingly suck the hope out of our enemies, whether we use violence or not. This is what we do with our free will.

And yet, the work of people moving in another direction shows too; writing human rights reports, engaging in dialogues (even those that end in failure), deescalating situations with a warning shot instead of an assault, continuing to fight from jail or after intimidation, daring to start a new business, cleaning up after an explosion, launching a flotilla that can only hope to have symbolic impact while risking everything. These people’s efforts seem feeble to me, but how can they be? They crop up just as doggedly as evil.