Stress is caused when you think that a situation should ultimately be changed yet in the short-term you are powerless to change it.

An activity is a hassle when you think it ultimately doesn't need to be done yet in the short-term seems necessary.

Changes in perception can alter your feelings of stress/hassle. If you realize something is ultimately necessary and doesn't need changing, then the stress can evaporate. Or you may see that the situation or activity wasn't what you thought it was, so there's nothing to be stressed about. Or perhaps you find a way around the situation or activity.

The world is immersed in cruelty and greediness. Many wish for a supernatural hero to right those wrongs -- but calls for help go unanswered. We, the average citizens of the world, are helpless as we witness the injustice.

But are we so benign? In our daily lives do we perform small acts of cruelty? Do we sometimes let hate build up in our hearts? Do we occasionally take more than we deserve?

Perhaps these small acts of discord combine with the discord of those around us like drops in a bucket -- forming a large pool of greed and cruelty. Maybe the world is a reflection of ourselves. If that's the case, then we have the world we deserve -- the one we created.

But if our little acts are enough to cause major injustices, can't they also bring about the opposite? If we hold back on our cruelty and instead comfort others, if we take only what we need, if we shine a light on the dark crevices in our own lives, can't those actions ripple through to the larger world?

If approximation is close enough, it might as well be the real thing.

The culmination of which is that your version of reality is as good as any other.

If someone tells you a fantastical tale of why the sun comes up every morning and his tale approximates the observable behavior of the sun, then his tale is as good as any other tale.

Holes are found in all tales, and they're subsequently covered over with additional details. As long as close approximation can be maintained, what difference is there from the "real" thing?

Dearest Massachusetts,

What a disgrace you have become. Founded by those willing to die for freedom, the Pilgrims sacrificed themselves on your soil. So willing to maintain that freedom, the Minutemen died clutching their muskets. The very birth of the nation that houses you began as a struggle to keep weapons of war in the hands of ordinary citizens. As the British marched to seize cannons and ammunition from storehouses in the country, the men of Massachusetts thought death was worth the price of keeping the citizens armed and able to protect themselves from any and all threats including those from their own government.

And now look at you, one of the most, if not the most restrictive gun laws in the country. You try to dictate how your citizens live and spend their money and protect themselves. Your government, the great protector, the great father, will take care of and coddle its people. Submit to you, and their well-being is your promise. You know how everyone's life should be lived. You the bastion of freedom, the birth place of a nation born from liberty's womb, all hail to you my leader.

Where have your sons gone, the ones who choose death over anything less than complete and unfaltering freedom? Who dares to call themselves a citizen of Massachusetts yet allows a standing army of well-armed police to march around and conduct random searches on an innocent populace? Where has your love of liberty gone? Were you not born of those wanting to die if they could not have their freedom? Does your fellow New England state not live by that very motto, "Live Free or Die"?

Massachusetts, you have lost your way. You have become the very opposite of what you symbolized. Massachusetts, the home of the individualist, the zealot that wanted freedom from any and all government restraint. Come to me all who desire the freedom to be what you want, and by God, take up your arms and fight if anyone should tell you how to live. Random search and seizure? Not here. Sacrificing liberty for perceived security? Not here, we will take our security into our own individual hands, thank you. Take our guns? You must be joking, we started a war that begat a nation the last time someone tried that. But no, you willingly give away your source of individual protection, you let a standing army live amongst you, to "protect" you. You not only let yourselves be watched over like children, you gladly contribute your hard-earned income for that right.

It is my wish, dearest Massachusetts, that you may find yourself again. That you will regain your standing as a home for those that treasure freedom above all else. That your citizens won't let fear get the better of them, that they'll realize "death is not the worst of evils". But until this wish is fulfilled, I must stay apart from you and watch from a distance how the cancer of fear destroys the dream you once were.

Sincerely,
Your child and former resident

To be blameless and a blessing to mankind is the goal of man. Though perfection is impossible, constantly strive towards the goal.

One way to think about selfishness:

The non-selfish humans really aren't non-selfish - they are just optimistic about getting what they gave up back. The "selfish" humans are worried they will never get back what they give.

Can individual humans change? Or are they stuck being who they are forever? Do humans have a personality equilibrium? Is it that they can make short-term changes only and then gravitate back to their original personalities?

It is pretty clear that humans can at least make short-term changes in themselves. The question is whether they can make long-term changes which in effect make them into different people.

Do human personalities travel a steady line in which changes in personality are only short interruptions - always tending back towards a base personality? Or do human personalities travel in a branch-like way in which they travel down different branches away from the original personality?

It seems that long-term changes in individual humans are difficult. Once a change is made there is a tendency to relapse to the previous behavior. And in order to keep a change for the long term it looks like constant maintenance is required in order to keep that change.

If the change brought about positive conditions, the maintenance might be very low to none though. This is because the resulting positive enforcement maintains the change itself. If on the other hand, you don't see much benefit from the change, it may be difficult to impossible to maintain.

Another question is whether the human really changed if rigorous maintenance is required to keep the change. If given the chance, he/she would go right back to their previous behavior - so is that change?

In summation, it at least looks like humans can change if they see the change as positive and it brings about positive reinforcement.

We don't love people, we love our imagined images of people.