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True. In the depths of despair (or the heights of elation) we don’t see the whole picture. I keep thinking we’re going to get past killing one another. But if we don’t, it might be true that still there are more angels than devils among us. Maybe the darker angels are just easier to notice, a lot of the time.

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Prolly there's many shocking and horrible things going on, and have been going on (think about how the news used to be reported, what was highlighted, what was ignored, things we now know were terrible, etc) but the human brain can't cope with knowing all of this. We didn't evolve knowing everything that was going on everywhere. So here we are, on overwhelm, dipping in and out of despair.

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Nov 3, 2023Edited
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Beautiful, yes. Little lamps.

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If there were no dark angels, what would stories be, David? Would we need them? Would we even be capable of imagining them?

(Or, to paraphrase Philip K Dick, do bright angels dream of dark angels?)

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Possibly. Thinking about this one. I can’t make the bad actors be good, but some of them might be good characters, opening themselves to become mirrors of all the good, bad and indifferent creatures that make up all of us. All of us, just a shot away from torture, murder, or love.

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Yes-- and like my son said, in different words, when I told him about this thread. The worst things have inspired some of the best literature

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