I went to the annual lake party and observed Memorial Day. I'm considering a book or series that addresses the sad human condition. What is that? you ask. We are a species that REQUIRES conflict and competition. Once upon a time (don't you love that as a start?) we competed for resources like all living things. Those better able to obtain the necessities of life survived. The others not so much. Animals do that, even plants do that. Humans compete now for power, wage war for hatred, kill for no reason. We've become quite efficient at killing each other. What is it in our psyche that demands we exert our opinion over others? (e.g. "Convert to my religion or I'll kill you" or "Our form of government is the only one. CONVERT NOW") There's an illness within us. Is it tied to our genetic makeup? Is it even possible to get rid of it? Since we can't seem to control our birthrate, perhaps this is the control on our species. It isn't working. We are rapidly gobbling up resources and poisoning our environment. The world will take care of us and not in a way we like if we don't do a better job. Picture a culture in a petri dish. It will grow until all the resources are used up and it poisons itself and crashes. Another lifeform will come along after that and the cycle repeats. Aren't we smarter than germs? We'd like to think so, but an objective view says not. I wonder what the next cycle will look like. I did get into this in my Evolution Series, but that isn't where I'm thinking of taking this theme in a new series. Want to know where we are in the petri dish of life on Earth? Read Evolution River series.