Humans

A few days ago I was trimming this very annoying fast growing little shrub around my mailbox when this car blew by me very quickly. The thing is I live in a little cul-de-sac of 6 houses per side so someone speeding down this tiny little road made no sense to me.

Like you'll have to brake for the stop sign at the end and what is the point of thrashing your brakes and accelerating in such a short distance (435 feet)? Not to mention the houses on the end of street both have little kids that are constantly running around outside. I just don't understand - there isn't a single benefit in this situation, yet this same car/individual speeds in the neighborhood frequently.

I wrote a post similar to this rant five years ago when I was living in an apartment complex when I witnessed a car run over a cat. That wasn't unique to that area as I've seen my fair share of flatten cats in the neighborhood. Thankfully in this place I haven't had to witness the actual event just the outcome. We have such a large population of feral and house cats you do have to be careful when driving in the neighborhood.

Saying all of this - I got back from a workout and noticed a large gathering of individuals near my house. I meandered my way over there in workout clothes and toe socks and joined my neighborhood annual town hall meeting. We aren't a real HOA so this is a opt-in meeting of interested homeowners for $50/year. It was very interesting hearing about all the topics to discuss which ranged from:

• crime report
• speed bumps
• community benches
• repaving roads
• vacation rentals

It seemed one thing everyone was in agreement of - they do not like rental homes in the neighborhood. I live two houses down from one of the rental homes in our neighborhood and I could align with some of the reasons they mentioned. Thankfully one person had a truthful comment to some form of "I like booking Airbnb's, but I don't want any on my street.".

The same way I like getting dividends from the market, but hate when companies change negatively in order to please the shareholders. I'm part of the problem I am trying to change. The same way every booked rental home gives merit to keeping vacation rental homes in the neighborhood.

The crime report didn't have much as it seems we are a safe neighborhood outside of some petty theft and car break-ins that weren't technically in our neighborhood. All I was thinking about then was the missing person from a sister neighborhood a year ago whose body was found in the woods not too far away recently.

I then started thinking about this jury duty assignment I had where I was thankfully excused before being selected as a juror. I didn't really want to spend day after day at the courthouse falling behind in work tasks. I researched that trial and found the accused was found guilty for attempted murder & kidnapping. We were lucky in our neighborhood to be discussing petty thefts instead of first degree murder.

As people talked in this circle it reminded me of this person and they were always carrying this burden of anything negative. They knew the crime, they knew the kidnappings, they knew about the poisoning of groundwater, they knew about the sinkholes. They believed if you keep the focus on events by continuing to talk about it - they will have to be solved.

I can't argue with that, but the toll it took on this person was insane. They wouldn't go to random establishments because this entity/corporation did something wrong. They wouldn't eat sponsored food from a corporation if they were boycotting that brand. They challenged friends why they didn't care about national news events like the killing of Lacey Fletcher.

I felt bad for this person - they literally believed every person had to go to their extreme of support for any cause. Agreement with a cause is not enough for this person - you have to join the movement. It became so interesting to me how a human could let themselves devolve into a basic hatred of their own human species.

From humans speeding to humans killing to humans drowning in sadness - we are a species that has everything from pure evil to greatness and everything in between.