Wednesday, February 29th - The day before a snow day, sunny, brisk, windy.....So what if, just what if,  assuming the voice of my alter ego to be correct (see prior post), people were basically "good?" What if everyone actually had been "innocent" as infants and this same spirit of idealism had carried over into their later years, that a trace of it remained active even among the most hardened killers, swindlers and socio-paths? What if everyone deep down was actually yearning to live productive and stable lives, with sensible modicums of drama and adventure thrown in, and despite certain traumas and derailments, intended no essential harm to others, were ready to serve, were waiting for a chance to devote themselves to a cause larger than themselves, had no deep-seated feelings of enmity or hostility toward their neighbors and fellow citizens? Entirely plausible you say - EXCEPT for a series of unfortunate events  - all the usual suspects, namely: death, divorce, drugs, disease, injury, enmity, loss, abandonment, betrayal, heartache, harassment, shunning, exile, displacement, vertigo - which combined with certain other mishaps - taking place higglety-pigglety among a certain portion of the population (oh, let's say 85% just for fun), planting within each soul a stump of outrage, and starting at an early age, leading them down all the wrong paths in life, conditioning them to imitate the most severe and desperate among their peers, making them gradually, eventually (I don't say immediately) give in to gluttony, sloth, mad lust, wrath, pride, envy, and greed just in time for them to make one or two or three fatal blunders at that "crucial moment" when much is at stake, whereupon they condemn themselves to a lesser life marked by an unraveling scroll of bitter outcomes. But imagine, just imagine (the optimist hasn't given up yet!) that if some simple intervention had been made, could be made, to place these still-unformed characters on a better path - one devoted merely to helping them find a preordained niche in life, a special talent, a calling, an avocation, a singular metier, - that ONE THING they were put on the planet to DO - their art, their passion, their career path, their identity space,  - call it what you will - that if some amazing sociologist could have found that precise interval, the sacred juncture, that "perfect time" to intervene -  would not all the other essentials of happiness (health, friendship, romance, work, productivity, civility, serenity, peace of mind) gradually, eventually follow in the wake of such a miracle? Is there not something so powerful about that  "angelic interruption"- for lack of a better word - whatever it should happen to be and at whatever age: a word of kindness, a simple embrace,  a modicum of attention, a move to a better school, as could make up for boatloads of "wasted opportunities" later on? And even if this should prove to be a wild theoretical misnomer,  a day-dream, a utopian fantasy, a very very remote, improbable, unlikely occurrence - yet still the mere fact that it remains within the realm of sheer possibility - an issue that teachers, sociologists, politicians and child-advocates squawk about and never tire of wringing their hands over, like they're waiting for someone to stand up and say out of exhaustion, out of impatience: "Oh, heck, I'll do it." - something that is scheduled to be "solved" but still resists, like the traffic problems in L.A., like the water in the Hudson River (which has in fact been cleaned up already or so I hear), like the southern border of California-Arizona-New Mexico that still makes people nervous, like the poverty rate and the illiteracy rate which theoretically should be going down, like the vitamin supplements and basic nutritional subsidies that kids around the world should be receiving at long last!  - like all of those other issues on the front burner that are still kicking around, should give us pause, should make us faint, should haunt us like the most nostalgic memory we never had.