I don't understand and don't think I ever could understand the human race. There are too many people who don't feel anything, too many people who put on this facade and pretend to be something their not, too many people who are self-absorbed and inconsiderate, too many people who will do anything even if it means losing their self-respect.

It seems like as good a person you believe the average stranger to be, they have just as much potential to be deranged. I think I'm a pretty patient and understanding person, but the more things I see in this world the more I feel like my heart is shrinking and I'm losing faith in goodness of people.

I know it doesn't help matters for me to start thinking this way, but then with the type of news you hear these days, it becomes harder to find the silver lining. Just today I had a lengthy conversation with a friend over the stories that start off "did you hear about that poor ____".

The odd thing is that it doesn't seem that stories like these were that prevalent in the past. Many parents seemed too afraid of kidnappers and pedophiles to let their kids out for Halloween this year. But I can't blame them - they feel helpless and afraid and are just trying to protect their children.

Whether it be gun violence, child abuse, sexual abuse, hate crimes - it just seems to get worse every day when you turn on the news. Sure, I know the media is partly at fault for over-exaggerating certain stories to make them seem worse, but many times there's no manipulation to a story, though with the gory details you hear, you almost wish it was made-up. I'm sure there's still a large number of people in our society who don't fall into this category.

Just have to pray that it's enough to save us all.