So I'm surfing the site today and I come across a journal by ~XX-Shadow-XY about a "Faith In Humanity Project" which of course, instantly grabs my attention.

The idea is to allot yourself 365 'faith in humanity' points (since it's the beginning of the year) and then add a point if you hear about a wonderfully happy thing that happened in the world, or deduct one if you hear something that seriously questions whether there is any humanity at all.

~XX-Shadow-XY then goes on to challenge others to do the same by joining the project for 2008 and updating their progress throughout the year.

At face value it's sort of neat and it obviously was interesting enough to grab my attention and compel me to read through it but I do see a major flaw with the set up of this project. The way this has been presented would lead me to believe that we are relying on other people in the world to determine the state of humanity. Are we not part of that equation? Do our actions not add or subtract from those numbers?

My guess is the intention is yes. What we do matters and perhaps it's not spelled out quite right in the initial journal and with that in mind I think this is a pretty awesome project. The idea that we can take a negative situation and counteract it by doing something positive ourselves, really drives home the idea that one person can make a difference.

No, I'm not naive enough to believe that my helping my elderly neighbor with her groceries is going to counteract the negativity of the AIDS epidemic but can you argue that I didn't improve the world in some way? I did for her in that moment and I think that's what matters.

If everyone on this site participated in this project for one day, we will have improved the world for that one day by 6 million times.

Think about that, that's insane! We are not alone, we are a community with power and a voice and an opportunity to improve our environment both virtually and physically. So make this your resolution for the year, because even if you flake out after a couple of days, you will have done something positive with 2008 and I'd be incredibly proud of you.

The original journal can be read here

And in other news... Ladytwiglet is pregnant!