Some days the sightlines along which you can see through life are all aligned on human stupidity and its attendant cruelty. Our ignorance, willfulness, greedy superficiality. Award shows and technologically created isolation and short attention spans and impenetrable layers of health insurance bureaucracy. At the moment, though, I am struck with how smart human beings are. How insanely smart and sophisticated are we and our own creations: language, media, machines. We are greedy, I think that's true, with the desire to fill up the space we are given in this world. And that has mixed benefits. But golly, we are smart. If you need it, it's already there.