Finally, the summer heat has broken and the weather is cooling off. It's actually possible to sleep at night again. But, of course, I'm wondering about a few things. That's what I do...

Thought 1: Two weeks ago I went to Yokohama for a short vacation. And there I was able to meet my cousin. It's very odd, finding someone who you appearantly have some connection to but so far from everything that you would expect to be connected to. While he was a witty, fun and all-around good guy, it was surprising how different we are.

Let's forego the explanations about different backgrounds and experiences. I'm not concerned about why we're different, that part is easy to understand. I'm concerned about how and why we happen to have any sort of connection at all. The same last name? Some shared DNA? What makes our connection more valuable than the connections that we would share if we were entirely unrelated by blood? Why is the idea of family so important?

Thought 2: Some people seem to be able to be happy fairly easily, others have more difficulty with it. Is it a skill that can be acquired? Is it like dancing or singing or making good coffee? Is there any reason to think that people can learn how to be happy? Or can people just learn how to do things that make them happy?

If mood altering chemicals like prozac make it easier to be happy, is it reasonable to think that a solution might be purely quantitative? That all one might need for a type of happiness is the addition or removal of a certain amount of certain substances. I'm not entirely sure where this train of thought is going, but it's been rolling around in my head for a while.

Thought 3: If America's current government is going to continue behaving as it has, is there any reason to think we won't face a series of attacks, famines, ecological crises and general reductions in the quality of life on the planet, all of which might have been easily avoidable?

I was just wondering...