"I've got nothing Ma, to live up to..." - B. Dylan

How about this for a crooked path to happiness? "The key to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible." - Bertrand Russell. I laughed out loud when I read this quote. Partly from surprise, and partly from the recognition that it seems so right. It's kind of like "Apocalypse Now, Redux" in reverse. Instead of a big, bloated, bald, Kurtz (think Brando in a kimono) whispering "the horror, the horror" at the end of the movie, just before he up and dies like a stuck pig, what if, you started the journey, at the mouth of the river, on your way to the "heart of darkness" (or go way back to the moment you popped out of the womb) with "the horror, the horror" on your lips? "I've been down so long it looks like up to me!" - Richard Farina. If you start with the horror, you are assured to find something to love. There will be some light in the dark. You will find the beauty beyond the brutes. Even if it gets bad, and it will get bad, it can't get that bad, can it? I'm thinking Russell had it knocked...it's the low/no expectations frame of mind. Once you accept the hard fact, you can spend the rest of your life melting it, moulding it, transcending it!