The Shadow Prooves the Sunshine

Something interesting occurred to me within the last few days. I'm not sure how it took me this long to realize this. Maybe it had something to do with listening to an old Death Cab for Cutie CD. Maybe it was the Coldstone strawberry ice cream I had tonight. Or just standing outside taking a break from an oddly busy week just to stare at the sunset that day. I'm curious about two things really: the honest thoughts of humanity and the ability to allow the little things to overwhelm us.

I know the three things I said before the two observations may not seem connected, but I'm getting to that. First the little things. Something as simple as planning your schedule after a long week can get you to the point of tearing your hair out. But even after those bad days/bad dreams, it seems that a little thing that we take joy in can momentarily take away all of the worries of the day like a nice warm shower. I don't know, something about the first bite of one of your favorite treats has an odd power over us. It lets us know that even after a test that had a question worth some weight that no one in the class was able to answer, we don't have to stay so infuriated. We are emotionally-compulsive beings, and thankfully it seems we just can't make up our minds for more than 5 minutes it seems. I actually think that our emotional-indecisiveness is more blessing than curse, simply because some emotions just aren't healthy over a long period of time.

Human honesty is an equally curious/strange/curious subject. Many of us know the right answers to questions of morality, and yet when put in situations of the same subject, you wonder if you can do what you said you would do. I was watching my school's production of Twelve Angry Jurors Friday, and I have this odd habit with plays and films. I almost instantly try to put myself in the world of the story. And what was frustrating to me this time around because although I love the play and simply from reading it I would instantly side with Juror 8 on the stance of Not Guilty, I found myself watching and genuinely thinking the boy in question was definitely guilty. It was only until Juror 11 was talking about how the old man/witness had an odd limp to his walk did I start to believe the boy was not guilty. I'm frustrated because for 30 minutes I believed it was fine to send a 16 year old boy to the electric chair. I know it's silly to think about since I knew the ending of the play before it happened, but I wondered what my actions would be if I was on a jury and had to decide if a person lived or died. This brought about an interesting view of my own judgement that I did not see before. I don't know, taking a step back to view your own morality and basically what makes you human is interesting is it not?

I don't necessarily feel as good about this post as I did the last time, but I hope that it was still something worthwhile to say. I'll try to post again Wednesday since it will be my only downtime/I will have done a special project I would like to talk about later. Until next time

Just JDR