I got into a "discussion" (not for the first time) with my aunt tonight about my inherent cynicism. I tend to believe that the "bad guys," for lack of a better term, tend to win in the world more often than not. I have strange criteria for this, though. I look at Hitler, for instance, who eventually was defeated but took the easy way out and killed himself before he could be brought to justice.

You see, I'm like Montressor in Poe's "The Cask of Amantillado" -- to really take revenge on someone, they have to be aware of it; they have to know they've been beaten and that you're the one who beat them. Hitler was so medicated by the time he killed himself he screwed the world out of that comeuppance. Stalin died of natural causes, as did Mao. On lesser scales, George W. Bush will never have to face the consequences of his awful career because he'll die honestly believing he did the right thing. You can even go lower on the importance scale: how many people do you know who are just terrible people, who actually want others to feel bad, and get a lot of what they want in life? (For a sports example, look at Terrel Owens or half the fans of the New England Patriots).

I realize this isn't always the case, but it seems to happen a hell of a lot more than what adults tell you as a kid. In all the stories you read as a child, the good guys usually triumph in the end. That doesn't always happen in the real world. Tonight I half-seriously mentioned that, whenever I have a kid, I'd tell him stories where the bad guys win to prepare him for the real world (NOTE: I doubt I'll actually do that -- I'll probably follow suit and make him believe in a just world that doesn't actually exist). My aunt just got so frustrated. You see, to her the end result is all that matters; in her book, Bush's policies have proven disastrous, so he's had his comeuppance, despite the fact that he doesn't actually feel it himself. Likewise, Hitler was defeated, and it doesn't matter that he never had to realize the consequences of his actions. Different worldviews, I suppose.

I really don't know how I got this way, or why I'm dwelling on it right now. Maybe it's the prospect that a Republican will steal the next presidential election, which I hate believing in because it's very conspiracy theory-ish, but it seems like an actual possibility, or maybe it's seeing the cruel Patriot fans genuinely try to hurt other people and get rewarded for it with another win, or maybe it's because I re-read parts of Tim O'Brian's The Things They Carried and I've been thinking about all the kids who got drafted to fight a war they didn't believe in and were killed for it. I don't know.

I'm just having one of my nights of depression, I think, more than anything. It happens. On most other nights, for example, when I think of World War II I think of the miracles at Dunkirk and Normandy; I think that the hard times are only there to test us and make the good times feel all the better. I think, deep down, that is what I believe, but nights like this it's hard to feel it.

It'd be nice to believe that, eventually, karma will come back to haunt everyone, but that doesn't always happen. You just gotta' live with it. Sometimes I think it would be easier to be one of those idiots who don't care about the world and don't know a damn thing about any country outside of America; they may be ignorant, callous, and annoying, but they also probably don't think about things like this that they can't control.

So what's better: trying to understand the world and getting upset about what you see, or ignoring everything but your own little world and being content, though useless to anyone else?