In a perfect world, people would not starve by the road while others own private roads.

In a perfect world, the color of one's skin, the sex of one's birth, the direction of one's affections; the religion one follows, the economic level of one's family, would not set one's course to security or exploitation.

In a perfect world, we would not fight endless wars over resources.

In a perfect world, no one would need an army or a bomb or an automatic weapon.

In a perfect world, people would not need drugs to buffer themselves from their existence.

In a perfect world, we would not be debating competing rights between fetuses and mothers because women would be seen as equal in consideration to the life that they bear; women would have autonomy in their lives; children would be valued by the community; there would be birth control for men and women; and ... and.

In a perfect world, when we said "life isn't fair" the unfairness would not be constructed by the society we live in.

But we don't live in a perfect world.

Some would argue that means we should just get along and go along.
For others, it is a farcical concept.
For some it means that we need to engage our hearts, minds, and hands in constructing a social existence that moves us towards a perfect world.

Will we achieve that world? Perhaps not. I am certainly not a utopian idealist. However, I am very aware that we have created the world we are in. We have created the cruelty. We have created the inequality and destruction. It was not visited upon us. It is not an "accident" or part of the "human condition."

Nope, we made it.

True, what we have made has also made us captives to a certain extent. We have become dependent upon destruction and exploitation for the survival of some at the cost of many.

However, it must be possible to break that captivity. It must be possible to change.

In fact, if we do not change what we have created, humanity may be but a footprint in the sand that was here and gone between waves.