Humans

I've always been fascinated by the idea that human beings became the dominant species.

Based on Darwinian theory, we shouldn't be.

We are not the strongest or the fastest. We have no natural protection from the elements.
In any climate, we require some sort of covering for our hairless bodies. We are not naturally camouflaged. Our faces and skin shines in the night. Our eyesight and hearing are not superior to most other animals.
We cannot swim without a lot of effort. Nature has given us no special advantage in the water.

Disgustingly Trustworthy

The lady who runs the convenience store around the corner tells me I can take anything I like, even if she isn't there. She's Egyptian. In her words, "You can pick up the ... things .. if I'm not here, just pick up."
"You can write down for me. .. Here.", and she points to a pad next to the cash register.

In this little coastal town, I doubt 10 people know my last name. -- They all know me as Paul (the big American).
The cafes I go to for lunch or breakfast, or just to do the coffee house thing, don't mind if I get distracted and walk out once in a while. They know I'll be back and pay up - even if I really did forget to fix it up.

I'm disgustingly trustworthy.
Sometimes I think I keep too many secrets. Business secrets, personal secrets, my own secrets, .. all of them kept. Probably even a few national security secrets I forgot long ago.
No one will ever hear them.

Characteristically, my work is something personal. Too personal really.
I want every character in a program exactly as it should be; the best possible code to accomplish the task. I'll refactor over and over until I get it right.
Back to the requirements, adjust, then look it over again. One of the bains of my existance is TDD.
Half the time, I end up with the same code I began with.

I hack and question each line, each method and strategy, until it feels and looks right.
Just a little more effort, and this would be obsessive.

Being trustworthy has its upside and downside.
The upside is I don't have the stress of stringing one story onto another. My memory might get faulty, but it is as close to the truth as I can get at the time - and people know it.
On the other hand, being trustworthy means being trusting. The air goes out of the room at times when I read a look in someone's eyes or face. But, like the dangers of freedom, that's a risk I choose to take.
The Golden Rule applies both ways to a few.

Weekends are for...Premonition?

Image by Shutterhack via FlickrTrying to get a sense of the world in this mad moment is like trying to describe the feeling just before a storm in Oklahoma. Great power moves stealthfully. Your heart rises in your chest and your breath quickens. At once fearsome and beautiful beyond words, the skies and the earth are straining in a chorus. The heavens roll and rock with rare vibrant colors.
More power seathes through the skies than any war made by man has ever unleashed.
Yet there is a stealthy quiet to it all. As if the video were on mute. You wonder at what the animals hear and feel. Is it just some inadequacy of the human senses? Why can humans only feel the echos of such sounds?
Mind and soul strain through your eyes trying to penetrate the mystery of the skies.
There is a war about to be fought by forces far beyond the ken of mere mortals. Phrases and prose flash through your mind as you reach both inward and outward to understand: The Winds of War. Rolling Thunder. Moments of anthems from your life roam between the prose. I don't know how many times I have whistled Duello watching the skies darken.
I find myself looking at the bright blue skies over a beach and whistling again, over and over. Duello. No prisoners. From ten thousand miles away, literally the other side of the Earth, my throat tightens in memory of The Alamo.
I have known men and women who survived the Gulags, the Holocaust, the horrors of WWII on Okinawa and Taipan. Tattooed and scarred, yet smiling when I knew them. Not brave smiles, full of a false propoganda of courage. But smiles full of wonder at their own courage. That they survived to see the world after the horror.
I suppose, I hope, that someday I will smile the same way - if I survive.
It's another Saturday in the mall. People work and laugh. They smile at one another, and read the papers.