Monday Musings.

So many times, I start out with a small, innocuous thought and, before I know it, it's got my brain in a full Nelson.  It's sort of like the Onion Conundrum - all those layers.  But an onion has nice, simple layers.  These small, gnarly thought beginnings remind me of a big wad of poultry netting - that plastic kind.  I say, if you want some villain to confess his sins, wrap him tightly in hundreds of layers of poultry netting and leave him to his own devices.  He'll be singing like a lark in no time.

The latest rendition started thusly - I was dropping off paperwork for the formation of a LLC at the Secretary of State's office.  I was the only person at the desk and there were - within eye-shot - easily 15 people shlubbing around, dressed in jeans and t-shirts.  After about 5 minutes, the woman closest to me must have felt the laser beams of my eyes and finally, sighing heavily, came to help me.  They take the forms, hand them off to someone else, who then comes back and either passes or fails your paperwork.  If you pass, they take your money and off you go.  I passed.  Riding down in the elevator, I wondered why it is that there are SO many employees in this one department when there is so little for them to do.  What if they condensed the workforce to half?  But, then, that would be another half on unemployment.  How did the department get so over-peopled in the first place?  And would it ever stop?  But it won't stop if there continue to be millions of new people in the world every year, people who will need jobs.  Is there a finite amount of money in the world?  I know there is a finite and shrinking amount of water in the world.  And so it goes.  It's like trying to envision the Universe.  It makes my head hurt and there are no perfect answers.

This past Monday evening, I had the opportunity to have dinner with a Swedish atheist and a well-read Methodist.  It was a very rousing dinner - what with the three tiny meatballs and a small salad, washed down with almost three bottles of a very nice white wine.  The topic was religion.  Now this is a subject that I avoid discussing at all costs because I have no intention of offending anyone.  But this was one of those rare occasions where the participants were more interested in the reasoning behind the emotions.  They were not offended.  They were interested.  It was fun!  It was also a little fuzzy in the morning.