wheres the love?

so tonight i re-watched a movie that i own and that i've seen several times, the united states of leland. i had recommended it to a friend and he watched it this past week, so i wanted a refresher, to remember what it was all about. the ideas and storyline in the film get me thinking every time, about important aspects of my life, and how i think about life. the main character (played by ryan gosling) talks about how there's two ways to look at things: you either see all the good, and hide whats actually going on, or you can stop pretending, and see all the pain and badness. sometimes i view myself as being pretty optimistic. yeah there's bad things in the world, no doubt about that. but the sun is shining, and i have been blessed with a really amazing family, group of friends, means to an education; i have far more than i need in so many ways. sometimes i'm optimistic. but then other times i feel utterly pessimistic. i see all the bad and the hurting all around me, and it makes me feel insignifant. like nothing i could do would change anything. and it's really easy to fall into that mindset and feel pain and anger and sadness for whats going on around you. but i guess what i came up with now after sitting for a bit, is that it's much better to be able to see truth, to know what's actually going on. ignorance, for me, is not bliss. however, it is how we embrace this reality that matters. i think that if we all started loving a little more, we would begin to see this love in others, and the reality would be love, not just a mask covering what is really going on. so, here's to loving, something i struggle with constantly. but i think it's pretty worth it.