"No use trying."

In his essay, "Immortality" - probably my favorite of all his many essays - Ralph Waldo Emerson writes:

"The skeptic affirms that the universe is a nest of boxes with nothing in the last box. All laughter at man is bitter, and puts us out of good activity. When Bonaparte insisted that the heart is one of the entrails, that it is the pit of the stomach that moves the world, - do we thank him for his gracious instruction? Our disgust is the protest of human nature against a lie."

I think I am with Emerson. Despite the horror of selfishness and greed and continuing depravity of wars - of organized murder of human beings in the 100s of thousands, I still believe the last final box one opens - is not empty. There is still reason to hope. And this hope lies in the very nature of what's inside ourselves.