From the moment we are conceived and a heartbeat begins pumping and a series of brainwaves commence, we have begun our death sentence. And life is the process of surviving the plethora of obstacles and events that strive to make the sentence shorter rather than "long-lived."

In my day-to-day political reading and writing, I'm really trying hard to channel my inner Spock. Rational, thoughtful. Logical. It's a dicey transition because of my natural tendency to let my anger sort run wild like a hangry kid with a hammer or a modern day activist. It's a change in perspective and a self-discipline that some who've known me for years are unwilling to accept.

In just about everything else in my life—get engaged on the third date, strike out on my own in a dwindling economy, wear Uggs slippers in plain sight—the inner Kirk wins hands down. Get enough information to be able to make a decision and go for it even if I don't have all the information or a sense of what the roadblocks ahead might look like.

If you want me to hear your story, you must agree to hear mine—that's the exchange. Does it surprise you that if you bark your rage in my face that I stop listening? Does it shock you that if you tell me to shut up and just listen without the humility necessary to hear my tale, that I'm not interested or moved?

Perhaps the desire to have an omnipotent god floating above and beyond us is the desire to have some being see and record the objective truth, untainted by human memory or the traps of ego or of believing that which you choose to believe rather than what is true.  An idea that somewhere there is an accounting for our mistakes and misdeeds, or silent moments of suffering or failure, the betrayals and disloyalty, the hidden opinions expressed in odd looks or coded phrases by someone or something untouched by our daily grind.