214 thoughts on “The Dark Side of The Moon<”

1. Hey Wil,
   Yours is a common perception these days. With everything going wrong in this world, how can anything seem right?
   Recently, my brother was working on a play and he had asked me to find pictures of people doing bad things to each other and people that have done good things for a couple of video montages. Unfortunately, it was very easy to find pictures of the bad stuff. Serial killers, concentration camps, that poor Lion in the Kabul zoo, a 10 year old child holding a gun somewhere in the middle east, Fred Phelps and his followers with picket signs at Matthew Shepard’s funeral, and of course, 9/11.
   I had to think really hard for images for the “good stuff” portion. But then I found a picture of a dancer in China honoring the 9/11 victims. And a picture of Jim Henson and Kermit. A picture of rescue workers at Ground Zero around what seemed like a giant iron cross. But it was much harder to find images of the good stuff, because it’s stuff we take for granted everyday.
   It’s really easy to get caught up in all the bad stuff. I’m currently reading “Stupid White Men” so I know why you’re feeling a bit hopeless and cynical. Though I admire Michael Moore for his amazing ways of discovering new perspectives and putting a new spin on things, if I start too think too much about what he’s saying, I get depressed and feel guilty for laughing about it when I first read it.
   Remember those lists of things you’re thankful for? Those are what is really important. In addition to the 7 things you’re thankful for, someone once suggested to me that every night before I go to bed I should make a list of ten good things that happened that day. I’m gonna cheat and make it over the past couple of days since I didn’t do much today.
   1. I got a call yesterday that the school I want to take classes from is accepting me and classes start in April.
   2. My cat has been incredibly cuddly.
   3. My husband is almost ready to send his latest comedy music CD to the printers. Just a few final touches on the liner notes.
   4. A friend of mine bought a Saturn. (Which is important not in the materialistic sense, but in the sense that someone I know has been smart enough to get rid of their Neon!)
   5. I’ve been kicking butt on Grand Theft Auto 3.
   6. I made meatloaf for dinner and it actually tasted alright.
   7. Survivor 4 started tonight. (Guilty pleasure)
   8. I’m one day closer to my January 2003 trip to Disney World.
   9. As far as I know, everyone I know and love is alive and well, including a friend of mine that had a brain tumor removed on Tuesday.
   10. I’m finished with this list. 🙂
   Anyway, I’m off to curl up with my wonderful husband who went to sleep while I was trying to kill 25 Triads with a flame thrower in GTA3. (hmm…there goes the positivity!)
   Steph W

2. This entry spoke to me particularly today. I spent most of the day in a depressed fog, for various reasons. I wish I could stop following the news … my major, however, is journalism. Not following is detrimental to my grade. Heh.

3. JSc, I never said you were talking about payoffs. I agreed with what you said, and offered another reason why you can’t trust stats from animal rights groups. Perhaps I worded my post in a bad way.

4. Hi, I read this forum from time to time, Wil. I worked at NewTek with you. I was touched as well by this story and wrote this letter to the family via their website at http://www.daniellemissing.com. I’m just at a state in my life where if I think something about an incident, I say it outloud instead of just shaking my head and saying, “how terrible.”
   Here is my letter to them:
   >>
   Dear van Dam family,
   I was so sorry to learn today of what could be the discovery of the “worst possible nightmare” parents across the world fear for their children, and the likelihood that has become a reality for you.
   As were a lot of people, I was hopeful for Danielle’s safe return.
   You may be asking yourself right now, why us? How did the normalcy of our lives all of a sudden turn into this, this nightmare that we didn’t ask for?
   You may try to find the answer by questioning everything you did or said, retracing your moments from that evening and whether any one of those small things may have stopped this from happening. The answer is no. Predators are
   just that. Predators. They sieze opportunity by preying on our sense of safety and trust, and attack in the blink of an eye. The predator is
   responsible for what happened to Danielle, not anything you as parents overlooked that evening. Danielle, under your care went to bed safely for
   seven years. Please remember that in those dark moments of doubt.
   You may even ask yourselves if she knew that you loved her so much. The answer is yes. Look at the person she was and that is your answer. Children
   who are loved and know they are loved smile and are happy like Danielle was.
   God bless you in your time of need and sorrow and you are in my prayers. There is no sense that can be made of this horrible act, no words that can
   describle the depths of sadness you must feel. Just remember that as you walk with a hole in your hearts, that you are not alone. The nation prays for you and cries for your loss.
   And again, remember these words, if anything.
   It is not your fault.
   It is not your fault.
   It is not your fault.
   God bless,
   Anne
   >>

5. No sweat. Just wanted to make sure that my opinions were absolutely clear, and that I wasn’t about to make or support any claims I couldn’t substantiate (5-cent word for the day).

6. Whenever life gets you down, Mr. Wheaton,
   And things seem hard or tough,
   And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
   And you feel that you’ve had quite enough,
   Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving – And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour.
   It’s orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it’s reckoned, ‘Round the sun that is the source of all our power.
   Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see, Are moving at a million miles a day,
   In the outer spiral arm, at fourteen thousand miles an hour, Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.
   Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars; It’s a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
   It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick, But out by us it’s just three thousand light-years wide.
   We’re thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point, We go ’round every two hundred million years;
   And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions – In this amazing and expanding universe.
   Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding, In all of the directions it can whiz;
   As fast as it can go, that’s the speed of light, you know, Twelve million miles a minute and that’s the fastest speed there is.
   So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
   And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space, ‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth!
   ( =D hooray for eric idle!)

7. Regenerate. Gain +20/+20.
   If you are still reading these, you know what I am talking about.

8. Ok, being a negative person, I really wasn’t gunna do this, but I like lists! 🙂
   Here’s what makes me happy…..
   1. I’m alive
   2. Big house-party tomorrow!
   3. I quit the job I hated
   4. I’m quit some…bad habits that I had in the past. I’m a much happier person, now.
   5. My friends. Goddamn…they’re fucking awesome people!
   6. That light-headed feeling you get, after smoking that first cigarette in the morning.
   7. Alcohol.
   8. Working everyday towards my Ph.D in Biochemistry . Only thing that gives my life a true meaning. Everything else is superficial in comparison. I WILL NOT QUIT!

9. I would agree with AMStrange. Me personally, I know I can’t change the world, but the few hours a week I spend helping folks makes my small nook at least a little better.
   My life isn’t happy per se…but it is satisfying. Bad stuff happens, but the good things outweigh the bad.

10. I would argue that there is nothing new with the state of the world. It hasn’t gotten worse, it’s always been pretty crappy. In the time it takes me to type this sentence I’m quite sure at least a dozen 7 year olds on various continents saw the end of their lives through various evil means.
    Communication across the globe is pretty much instantaneous. That little girl in SD is simply the one you heard about. In the New York Times there’s an article on all these relief workers who’ve been sexually abusing children in refugee camps from Africa to Croatia for the basic necessities they’re sworn to provide as relief.
    The one sure thing you can do is perpetuate your own random acts of kindness and not fall into the madness. Just my two cents.
    K

11. Here in London it’s 7:30 in the morning and amazingly enough we have blue skies and only a light frost, today could possibly be the perfect february day. And so I begin it with some optimism… I’m not sure if I have any words of comfort for you Wil, but know this – random (and not so random) acts of violence have always been with us, greed has always been with us and what we can do about it you are already doing. Act in conscience, help to change what you can, raise your children to play fair and care about what is going on around them and spread a little love and laughter out along the way. This is how social change happens – it just takes time…..

12. Wil,
    Don’t try to understand it. It’s incomprehensible. I used to be able to not let this stuff get to me, but since I have children myself I don’t seem to be able to do that anymore.
    Seven things to be thankful for is nice, but when it all gets too much, ask yourself this: do you have your family’s love and respect? Your health?
    Pathetic attempt to lift spirits:
    A few months ago, a 4-year old got lost on a hike in the area where I live (Seattle). He turned a corner and just disappeared. The longer he was missing, the more pessimistic people got. After 2 or 3 days, a search party found him. Cold, hungry, but unharmed. This doesn’t help Danielle van Dam or her parents a bit, but sometimes these things have a happy ending.
    Oh, and don’t apologize for the Battlefield Earth joke. Sometimes humor is necessary to balance things out, even if it is black humor.

13. I think I have to go along with Thumper on this one. Due to near-instantaneous communication, the world is indeed a much smaller place now, and events that once would have been strictly localized are now quite widely disseminated. A byproduct is that we are bombarded by much more information generally, and the inherent sensationalism of an entertainment-driven media ensures that the information we are spoon-fed is frequently horrific. Our population is larger, so of course there are more crazies than perhaps there once were, but this may be simply of function of overall numbers and not a shift in the per capita percentages. The world has ever been a very dangerous, scary, tragic place; we are now simply made more aware of our fragility—relentlessly made so aware.
    Go hug your wife and kids, Pal. And carry on being concerned and active, but not overwhelmed. Maintain your perspective. Someone surely pulled the chain long ago; but we’re still swirling around the bowl, and we will be tomorrow.

14. Rem wrote “It’s the end of the world as we know it..” Truer words were never spoken. Sorry to add to the doom and gloom aspect, but look at all the TV shows about demons, withcraft, and alike, how jaded we have become towards violence and such. And we’re fighting a holy war.. Yes kiddies it is a Holy war..
    *sigh* Mr Scot, one to beam up..
    On the brighter side, more and more people are uniting via this mass of wores and cpu’s. And hearts and minds are speaking as one. This indeed means the human spirit is far from gone or defeated. Consider all the above and alike as a wake up call, and start paying attention..
    Geez I sound like an evangilist.. NOT, in Bruce Derns movie middle aged crazy he said “..give em back their funny hats and stay 18 forever!”
    Good advice..

15. Hi Wil.
    I haven’t read any of the other posts, so if I repeat anything that anyone else has said, I’m sorry.
    Bad things happen. Dark, terrible things that we don’t understand. And we think that there is nothing we can do against such things. Perserverence of personal morality is important, because even if it’s just in your little part of the world, in your sphere of influence (which we all have), you can make a change. You can influence somebody and inspire them to do something truly good, just by being a good person yourself. Hell, I know you’ve inspired me to be selfless a few times now, and that’s no little thing. That’s precious. It works like a wave, and it keeps going.
    Of course, how does that sort of wave help little girls that get abducted and killed? It doesn’t. No one on this earth knows why people do things like that. No one knows why the peoples in the Middle East war with each other (I don’t even think they know anymore), and well – you mentioned other things I have no idea on, they’re american issues. I do understand the Battlefield Earth thing though. As Tom Servo once said, that’s a ripe slice of hell.
    Things *are* slowly improving, Wil. They really really are. I remember my mother celebrating the day the Berlin Wall fell. She never thought she’d see the day that would happen. My father is from Germany, and she’s visited the country many times. The fall of the wall touched our family very deeply, and it was a step forward for humanity. The Apartheit (I can never spell it), that fell, and even though there is still voilence and problems in Africa, that’s gone. My mother never thought she’d see the end of that either. Bad things happen, but good things happen too.
    Five years ago, there was no recycling in our neighbourhood. Now, the recycling bins we are given are bigger than our regular trash bins, and we’re encouraged to compost and use all we can of our waste. That might seem quite piffling compared to the attrocities you’ve mentioned, but think about it… that’s a little less oil needed to create plastics. That’s a little less of pristine Australian Rainforest being ripped up for mining of alumuminium ore (bauxite. I’m a total geek that I know that), a little less trees being used to make paper pulp. People want to make changes for the better, and in that alone humanity has much hope.
    I have a deep belief that all in life works best with balance. At the moment, it seems you’re seeing the dark things that are happening. At the same time, look for the good things. I know, it’s hard searching, sometimes, but good things do happen. And like someone said, you have seven things today to be thankful for.
    When I feel down about the world, I always feel better by trying to do something to improve it somehow. Even if it’s something small, like helping someone or being nice to my sister for a change (that’s a joke).
    Good luck with the new season of Keith’s show, and despite what the scary old man says at the end of the album, there is a light side of the moon too.

16. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live.
    I have seven things to be thankful for today
    1. that i woke up and it wasn’t raining
    2. that i can count my parents as friends and value their influence on my life
    3. that the band i went to see last night were fantastic
    4. that any day now i am going to become an aunt
    5. that i have the capability to help my friends without them asking for it
    6. that i made a new friend this week
    7. that i can find like-minded people out there, even though they are on the other side of the world.
    wil, thanks for the time you spend making this space for us to share

17. This is probably going to sound cheesy, but the idea behind it is sound, I promise…
    You’ll never be able to understand why the monster that hurt that little girl did what he did. For your sake I hope you never do. But you can send her mother a letter and tell her you wish you could take away even a little of her pain.
    You can’t make the world care about global warming but you can recycle.
    You can’t change the world, but you can fill your little part of it with all the good stuff that makes your family happy, secure and loving. Then hopefully others will learn from you by your example.

18. It also seems that for something to be news it must be negative (Israel-Palestine, rape, murder,etc.). Most people don’t hear much about the good that is happening. For example in Sri Lanka the civil war seems to be peacefully ending. (The government is giving back the Tamils their rights to vote etc.) Unfortunately since this was not a blood filled coup we don’t hear much about this. I work with two guys from Sri Lanka and they keep me somewhat up to date on what’s happening.
    About global warming (I really hate that term), the term is wrong. It’s not global warming it’s an increase in odd weather (a storm of the century happening every decade). Weather patterns getting really screwed up. Having an arctic cold front going through Texas should not happen normally should it.
    Life only sucks if you only get to see the negative. Look for the positives (somedays easier to do than others)

19. Sad thing is that it’s going to take something Big to wake up the world. Something that’s going to make 9/11 pale in comparison. A war, a huge natural disaster, an asteroid. Only then, when hundreds of thousands of people are dead and life as we know it changes and people worldwide suddenly realize that we are just tenants of this big blue marble, will we really change.
    Very pesamistic of me I know but man has travelled the wrong path for too long to change by ourselves.
    Until the big event, the only thing that has a chance of making things better is the time you spend with your children and the children of you friends, relatives and neighbors. Tell them the truth, for Gods sake, don’t feel like your protecting them if your not preparing them to face the future. Their future and not yours. Make them read daily, hell read with them. Make sure they don’t watch too much mindless crap on TV. Make them laugh, teach them to cook and tell them they’re loved and set an example. All of which is much harder than it sounds what with working 60 hours a week and that golf game on the weekend. Changing the world starts with changing one childs mind from “let’s watch the South Park marathon” to “let’s go get some more books at the library.”

20. We’re coming up rapidly on a time where we’ll finally realise we’re not free, but paying slaves of an elite ruling class. These are the birthing pains of the New World Order.
    Our free-range days are over. Indentured servitude and slavery, here we come.

21. I don’t know. I agree with you, or empathize with you, about it all. I feel pretty lost myself right now. One thing that’s true is that there are probably as many amazing and inspiring events happening at any given moment as there are horrible and terrifying events. It’s just that we’re culturally habituated in the practice of focusing on the darkness – it’s not that these stories don’t need to be covered (and alot of them that should be covered are not), but that anyone who watches or reads mainstream news media generally ends up with a pretty hopeless picture of the state of our world. But I’ve been sick with the flu and watching lots of tv lately, so i might not be the most neutral observer on this point right now. I guess what I’m trying to say is…I don’t ever want to be in denial of the darkness, but I don’t ever want to shut out what light is there, either. God, I sound maudlin.. oh well.
    But thank you for bringing this up, because I’ve had these feelings lately and I suspect that many others have as well.

22. Wil,
    You’re certainly not the only one feeling this way :-\ You know, it astonishes me how few people even care though, that’s what bothers me the most. The fact that we have all these problems is far less disturbing, relatively speaking of course. Earler, Cindy posted about wanting to have children. I feel much the same way: while I and my girlfriend look forward to having children in the future, I wonder what kind of world we’d be bringing them into. I’m pro-life (let’s not go there please), yet I sometimes find myself asking if it’s truly the right thing to do to bring a child into this world in its current state. It’s time for us all to take a stand and educate the ignorant about these issues! Expose our society’s flaws!
    Wil Wheaton for president! 😀
    Seriously though, Wil, you’re just the kind of guy we need more of and I think that you being involved in hollywood is all the better!

23. “…And if all that isn’t enough, I hear that there’s a sequel to Battlefield Earth in the works.”
    NOOOO! Please, say that isn’t true! *dies*

24. Hey, Wil, I’m actually a little bit surprised that you mentioned the murder of the little girl as something that seemed to be a complete “surprise” to you. I don’t know how it is over there in the States, but in Germany we have these things in the news basically every single week…
    Just recently a little 12 year old girl got stabbed to death in her bedroom, while the parents were gone to some party and her little brother was sleeping in the other room. THey still have not the slightest clue who did it.
    Every week you hear stories of children who just disappear somewhere in bright daylight, and usually a couple of weeks later they find the dead body somewhere, in most cases sexually abused.
    Well, compared to the U.S.A., Germany is a pretty small country, so I would expect these things to happen even more often in the States; but maybe I’m wrong, it seems to me sometimes that Germany is just full of perverted freaks.
    As for politics, I guess it will never end until we finally manage to blow our good old planet into oblivion…
    As an artist I find it very hard to just keep on living pretending there’s nothing wrong, since it really hits me hard to see all these things happen around me; it does inspire me for some songs, at least, and maybe, if people hear them, it will at least get them thinking about the situation; that’s not much, but at least it’s something.
    So don’t worry about being a “downer”; you are far from that ! ! ! It is very important that people like you, who have the chance to address a lot of people at a time (and who will be listened to, since they are nice guys and well known to the general public) talk about these things. I personally have made the experience, that after my concerts a lot of people, especially young ones, tell me how right I am with what I’m saying in my songs and that they never thought about certain aspects I mention in the songs before.
    Well, that’s not much, and it sure won’t end no wars, but it sure is a beginning and it definitely is a step in the right direction. So, please keep on talking about these “Dark sides of the moon” from time to time, whenever you feel like that, and be assured, you’re not alone ! ! !

25. Hi Wil, people,
    the world is indeed in a sorry state. Over here in Germany we haven’t heard the sad story about the little girl in California, but we had a similar case here last week where a little girl was killed in her bedroom. Fortunately they managed to catch the guy.
    Crimes seem to get more violent, people seem to get more aggressive, just take your car on the road and drive for a while, you’ll notice. But there seems to be a vicious circle: if someone does a bad thing to you, you have a more negative attitude and are much more likely to be mean to someone else. But the contrary is also true: do something good, and not only will it make you feel better, the other person will feel better too.
    The solution to the world’s problems might have been as easy as everybody starting to be nice to everybody else, if you didn’t have those 10% of the population that loves to take advantage of the other 90%. It’s all a big pyramid scam: we’re living off of the cheap labor of third world countries, wear designer jeans manufactured by child laborers, the big corporations are living off of us, and the CEO’s are on top of the food chain. Everybody is only seeking their own benefit, and if it hurts someone else? Their attitude: Their problem, if I don’t do it somebody else does.
    But what can everybody do about it? Well, just start in your own microcosmos and be nice to your fellow people. If a colleague comes up to you and asks you something, be nice and keep a positive attitude, even if stress is getting to you. The next killings by frustrated ex-employees could be you.
    Oh, and go vote when an election is up, and make an informed decision. Don’t let anybody else tell you who to vote for, only when you vote for who you think can do the job best, then you have a right to complain about anything.
    That’s my $0.02 for today, take care!
    -Oliver

26. I totally agree with you Wil, i mean coming from the UK we have alot of Afgans,Pakistani’s etc. all they want to do is fight. The other day near my town, a church was burnt down because it was Christian, which happens to be my religion. Don’t get me wrong I’m no racist, but you’ve gotta think what’s been happening in the world recently:- Sept 11, War against Terrorism, Afgan people fighting against Afgan, a white 16yr boy jumped and beaten to death by 6 Asians!!!
    I totally agree, the world is farked up.

27. Wil & Everyone Else:
    Boy, this was certainly an interesting read for first thing this morning. I don’t know how Wil feels about all of the posts here, but I know that I feel BETTER having read what all of you said. (Yes, even the education on vegan philosophy taught me something….maybe more than I needed to know, but hey, thought-provoking regardless).
    It gives me an incredible amount of hope for our world when I see such a wide range of people post words of optimism. When individuals lose hope, we’re really in trouble. But, in spite of all the really bad, terrible, wrong, disgusting, horrible crap out there in the big world, our LITTLE worlds are under the influence of our ATTITUDES. Attitude is everything. If we focus on the good to the exclusion of the bad (Pollyanna-ism) we might miss an opportunity to right a wrong, help someone in need, or stand up for injustice. But, when the pendulum swings the other way, and the dark side takes over, we become mired in depression and become PART OF THE PROBLEM.
    So, Wil, like many other posters have said better than me:
    Hug those kids – they are our future.
    Encourage them to reach out to other children in the bigger world.
    Cherish your wife – if you’ve chosen well, (and, it sounds like you have) she is your comfort and support. Don’t lose sight of that.
    Do something (anything) kind today for someone you don’t know.
    Do something tomorrow.
    And the next day……
    QUIETLY, LET YOUR CHILDREN SEE YOU DO THIS.
    Set a good example for your children and your community.
    Find balance in your life.
    A close friend died of testicular cancer a few years ago. Before he died, he had several bone marrow transplants, which kept him alive for a few years longer than he would have had otherwise. My husband, who didn’t know this guy very well at all, was moved to register for the bone marrow transplant donor registry. His motivation? It is something he can do that might give someone else a chance at life. Even a few more years to spend with their family is something.
    In your own way, you are making the world a little nicer for a bunch of disconnected folk that wouldn’t have had this unique opportunity to connect if it hadn’t been for this site. Thank you for that. I’m going to go do something nice for someone else today. Oh, it’s my birthday! I think I’ll give someone else a present….
    Happy Birthday to me.
    Corky

28. Dang. I’ve been feeling that way for months now, since before the WTC attacks.
    Normally I’m fairly sane and un-paranoid, but I spend almost the whole of August of 2001 convinced that some horrible cataclysmic thing would soon happen and the world as I knew it would be completely irrevocably changed.
    Hasn’t exactly happened that way, in the wake of 9/11 at least, and the feeling (to some extent) has gone away…but setting that paranoid bit aside for a while, many a pre-and-post September quiet moment finds me wondering what the hell the world’s come to. You’re not alone, and I’m glad I’m not, either.

29. I feel the same Wil. Its been nagging at me as well. Most things seem to be spiraling downward at an incredable rate.
    Over here in Australia we didnt hear about the little girl, but agian we have similar sad things happening.
    Every day I try and be nice to people i come into contact with. Yet it seems to have no effect.
    As the days roll by I consider becoming a politican so that perhaps i can introduce some change for good. Then i think more about it and relise i could sell my soul on ebay and probably have a greater effect.
    Safe travels Wil and I look forward to seeing you in the next Star Trek movie.

30. Wil, the story about Danielle scares the hell out of me. The first night I heard about it I went upstairs and made sure every window in my daughter’s bedroom was locked. I’d always figured she was pretty safe, upstairs in a 2.5 story house (my basement is half above ground, so my house is really tall) but hell, I don’t feel so safe anymore.
    I’ve gottent to the point now that i just skim news articles. Everything is so scary and horrible that if I read them all, and worry about it, it’ll tear me up.
    Which of course, isn’t good, to stick my head in the sand and pretend that everything’s okay, but sometimes…
    It’s a Bad Time right now. Hopefully things will get better before they get much worse.

31. Hey Wil,
    For you it’s the little girl (horrifying, my god), for me it seems to be the murder of Danny Pearl. I almost began to cry on my way home from work yesterday as they read readers letters on NPR and a listener complained that it had been unecessary for NPR to go into grusesome detail about the manner of his death. I recalled that the reporter said he had been speaking as they cut his throat and I could picture it in my mind. I was feeling pretty good until I heard that story, but I don’t wish that I had not heard. These acts are horrifying, but if we don’t know about them we can’t act against them. I’ll have to write more later.

32. Wil,
    It depresses me to see or hear about horriable things happening in the world…especially because it is almost glorified and worshiped by the news media. There was a time when media people had an honor code….a balance to the way they give news. example: Franklin D. Roosevelt
    There was an understanding about not showing that he was in a wheelchair because they wanted to keep and preserve the honor of Roosevelt. The media fishes to tear down things. Not that I wish for them to hide truths from the world anymore but just have a balance. Where is the Objectivity? What really gets me depressed is watching CNN. They are so discusting the way they deliver things. One example that really pissed me off was when the lady anchor delivered a news story about a guy who …on sept. 11th bought a ton of postcards with the WTC on them and went and had them stamped at the post office on sept. 11th. And all the while the anchor woman was delivering this discusting and Useless bit of info she was gleeful sounding. CNN is really bad for not showing proper decorim. What happened to the news people like Walter Cronkite? Anyways, before coming online to read this post I had been sleeping and had a freaky nightmare about the world being nearly wiped out by a spreading wall of fire. I dreamt that it distroyed everyone I loved and stopped when it got near me. And that the army wanted to take over my house for its headquarters. I won’t describe anymore of the dream it was quite upsetting…but thankfully only a dream. Here’s a suggestion which I hope can help anyone who is in a funk about the world. Listen to music. I listen to some sad or reflective music and it seems to cheer me up a little. Right now I am listening to Carol King: “You’ve Got a Friend”. I will prolly follow it up with Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die”, “OFF the Ground”, and “Looking for Changes”. Though I might listen to Bauchman Turner Overdrive.
    What songs cheer you up, Wil and everybody out there?

33. The world is, never has, and never will be a perfect place, Wil. The death of the girl was a tragedy, but it’s nothing compared to some of the other things that have happened in Earths history. Holocosts, The two nuclear bombs, Volcanos, Earth Quakes, Ireland, The Crusades, The Plague, Tribal wars, WW1, WW2, Viet Nam, Revolutionary war, (possibility of a comet wiping out a massive portion of Earth’s life), famine, AIDS, Ebola… Earth is full of atrocities. They happen everyday. Most people would like to blame humanity as the sole evil on Earth, but there is no evil. In the end, it is not man who will destroy earth, it is nature.
    It is because of these horrible things that we see and sometimes experience in our lives, that we are able to understand their opposites, the truly beautiful and glorious.

34. I don’t know… I think the world can’t be TOO bad when Wil Wheaton’s claiming “My POOP tastes like CANDY!” in an ad for an online comic.
    Check out the URL to see what I mean — and no, I didn’t create this, I just ran across it.

35. I have to agree with Eri, the only thing we can do to change the planet for the better is to change our every day life. We can only get discouraged looking at the big picture, but if everyone one of us make a real effort to make people around us a bit more happy (family, friends and strangers alike), things will HAVE to change. We can also do our small part for the planet: I took out 2 full bags of recycling this morning, and I can’t believe I used to just send the stuff to the landfill…
    About Battlefield Earth… I dunno, I didn’t think it was THAT bad… I mean, my husband had me sit through Planet of the Apes last week, and I didn’t see much difference, except for the fancy FX… At least Battlefield Earth made me laugh!

36. There’s not much else to add. Yes… I do feel pain for all those lost and, in my own way, I try to make this world a little bit better. The best you can do is take care of your own and remind them that most of the human race is not evil. The evil is just more vocal. Thanks to the great media. Otherwise things would be so much worse. Agree?

37. I know exactly what you are talking about, except I hadn’t read the paper or heard the news since Monday. The whole of human kind is hurting, Muslims say that the killing of one innocent is like the killing of all mankind. Some say we all come from Adam and Eve, wouldn’t you hurt if your brother or sister was hurting too?
    I hate feeling this way and not being able to do do a damn thing about it.
    -nicole in freakishly warm Toronto

38. As long as there are barbaric humans roaming around destroying everything with our ignorance, there will be pain and suffering abound.
    The world has always been like this, but now we have 24 hour coverage of it on TV. Too bad they didn’t have the TV during Alexander the Great’s romp through Persia (like when he bound a city population of 40,000 and threw them into the sea), or make a game show out of the inquisition. I’m sure Fox would pick it up.
    The world sucks, so knock back a beer and play some GTA3, because we can’t do shat about it.

39. There’s a lot of posts here, a lot of good ones (as is always the case here) that I haven’t had the time to shoot through, so I apologize if I’m repeating anything (which I know I am).
    The reality is that the world has always been this way. Somewhere, people are suffering right now and there’s just not a damn thing you, me or anyone else can do to stop that. We can try to do as much as we can, but we’ll never get it all.
    That’s not to say we shouldn’t try, but you have to realize that it’s more work than any one person or one group of people can do.
    When we were children, and I’ve seen lots of reminisces of this in the 80’s forum, we didn’t know everything that was out there. We were innocent and somewhat carefree and look upon those days as fun and enjoyable. But if you take a historical eye to things, you’d see that the evils of the world were just as present, whether it was while you were playing video games, or during disco, or while someone was walking on the moon, or even while “Leave it To Beaver” was in first run. As children, we’re blissfully ignorant. That’s why nostalgia, for any decade, is such a great feeling.
    I wish I had better news about all this, but all I can suggest is to try to take some time to forget about it and hug the ones you love the most.
    And by the way-here in Michigan, it’s 20 some degrees. No global warming here!

40. I agree, it does seem as if the world is going down the toilet. It makes one wonder if the apocolypse is near. As a young person (16) I feel very afraid of the world now. I know this feeling is normal, but i get so depressed when i think of what type of world I am going to enter into when i finally leave the comfort of my parents home. Kinda makes you wonder why teen suicide is at such a high rate these days, doesn’t it? The only thing that keeps me going is the hope that it all will eventualy get better, some way, some how.

41. Nah, yer not alone, Wil. I saw that girl’s flyer on the local Target here a day or two after she had gone missing (I live in San Diego). Sadly, my first thought was, “They won’t find her alive, but I really really hope they do.”
    Ever since 9/11, I’ve had this persistant thought that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Well, I take that back. Ever since Dubya was elected, I’ve been feeling that way. No, wait, maybe it was back when Desert Storm was going on… (you get the idea).
    Am I afraid because the world is so screwed up? A bit. I am still unemployed, I have no retirement fund, and I’m thirty-one farking years old. My future is uncertain to say the least. Hell, I don’t know if I even need to worry about my future. Maybe the world as we know it won’t exist in five years. *shrug*
    So, I’ve been trying to learn to live in the moment. Kind of like.. worry about the here and now. If there’s something out of your control, don’t fret over it. Worrying will only make you miserable and it won’t change anything. I keep hoping some of this crazy shit I read in the news is that which is coming to be and passing away, not that which abides.
    Luckily, my roommate earns enough to be able to keep paying the rent, the two bills we have, and buy groceries while I job search. It gives me the luxury of having time to do a lot of soul searching in between. I’ve resolved to try and be a better person. It’s the only thing I have control over. I can’t keep the Palestinians and the Isrealis from blowing the shit out of each other. I can’t keep nutcases from crashing planes into buildings. What I CAN do is eat healthier and become more active. I can walk that short way to the market instead of taking the car and adding to the pollution. I can try to put a smile on someone’s face by doing something simple, like holding a door open for them, or letting them have that parking space without a fight.
    I can work at strengthening my personal faith and sense of spirituality which, in turn, helps me deal with all this crap I can’t control.
    Just think. If just half of everyone in the world tried to be a better person and thought of someone else before themselves once in a while, do you think things would be any different?

42. There has been and will always be problems in the world. All that changes is one’s own awareness of them. I mean no offense to anyone, but these things are nothing new. If anything has changed lately, it is just the media’s coverage. The really bad stuff is “in” in our culture right now; perhaps because people are generally glum since September, so they feel they should be getting bad news upon bad news. I’m no psychologist though, so I won’t dwell on that.
    In any event, being negative about the state of the world is counterproductive. Sure there are bad things going on, but there are good things going on as well. Enjoy life, and try to make the world a better place… but don’t just say “there’s something wrong” as if it’s a new thing.

43. Calm down, Wil. ‘Twas alot worse in ’73.
    The Israeli’s were surrounded by enemies they soon handily defeated, Nixon was embroiled in Watergate, we were losing Vietnam but couldn’t believe it, and… and…
    Today? http://www.fatchucks.com/corruptcds/index.html provides a list of the music labels that won’t work in your computer’s CD- or DVD-player (or, in many cases, my dad’s stereo CD system).
    The world is always almost coming to an end.

44. Sadly Wil, Everyone does NOT want a Happy life.
    Some people want to make sure NO ONE else does either. There’s a thought for ya.

45. I hear you…every day it’s something else. Yesterday on NPR I heard that the US is paying and training these Afghans to track down Al Qaeda stragglers lurking around in the mountains; Russia is getting spooked at all the US activity in their neck of the woods; the Israelis and Palestinians are still bombing the shit out of each other; and Daniel Pearl’s religion evidently was a contributing factor in his death.
    It just all seems like it’s snowballing. How are we going to be able to re-ravel all this craziness? Half the time, I’m withdrawing into old books and music with absolutely NO political overtones and comfortingly vapid messages; the rest of the time, I read Robert Jensen speeches, send money to the Arab Anti-Defamation league, and rant passionately to like-minded people in the hopes we can get SOMETHING positive accomplished.
    The SCALE of it all just seems so daunting, you know?

46. think trying to read all this junk would make you more depressed. go watch cartoons and turn off the fricken news.

47. Totally understand what you’re feeling, Wil. I’m feeling it too. I’m so sad about the little girl. Finding her body will hopefully help convict the ahole who killed her and give her parents a little peace being able to say goodbye.
    There is a lot of crappy things that are happening in this world but I just have to look at my sweet 8 month old son Ben to see that there is a balance of good too.

48. Wil,
    I understand your frustrations completely. Today I picked up the paper to read that Israeli troops have entered Palestinian refugee camps. And yesterday, I was channel surfing until I came upon “Delta Force.” Funny, I’d seen that movie some months before, but surprise, surprise, it was harder to watch it now, in a different light. It made me think about how there are actually people in the world who do that, and what I would do if I were in a situation like that. And then, on about page 20 of the paper, a little blurb about Danielle Van Dam. Kidnapped and killed why? Because her mother wouldn’t dance with her neighbor at a bar?
    However, I do have faith and peace, and I feel comfortable knowing that as the world weeps, God is weeping with us.
    Oh, and on a side note, thanks for not blaming us Republicans and our Lucifer-like policies for all this death and destruction in the world. I appreciate that. 🙂

49. One has to wonder if the world is really falling apart more than ever, or if our perception of it doing so is heightened because of the mass-exposure to news we have these days.
    I remember reading a recent article (during the Clinton presidency) about people’s perceptions of crime being on the rise and neighborhoods being overrun by gangs was attributed to the amounts of information that are available today. The truth is that crime (at the time; I don’t know about now) was at a 25 year low.
    With the news channels, the internet, newspapers, magazines, and radio all hyping up catastrophes around the world, I know I sometimes feel like things are coming to an end.
    Still, the Earth is resilient, and it will survive. It may be without humans, but it will survive.

50. I totally understand where you are coming from. The other day.. I think it was Monday I was watching the regional news and they said that a mother was stabbed to death (allegedly by her bf) while her two kids watched. I’ve been thinking about that all week. It’s really farked up…
    Then in the paper there was this little kid from Israel holding an Ak-47. Cripes..
    Then there’s that serial killer out west who runs a pig farm or something. It’s scary stuff..
    Whenever I get tugged down by the weight of whats happening elsewhere, I pack up a little backpack and trek back into the woods. After awhile you get so far in that you can no longer hear the cars or the wars or the screams. The trees are your sanctuary and their branches stretch to you in comfort. Lay against a comfortable rock and let the wind heal you…
    Nature does work wonders..

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