Life is very interesting some days.

I was cruising along the internet a few days ago and saw a WikiHow titled How to Create a Realistic Fiction Character so I checked it out. These are the items in the list:

• Create a basic profile for your character.
• Create goals, treasures, and banes.
• Based on goal, treasure, and bane, create background.
• Create idiosyncrasies.
• Define what it would take to make your character cry.
• Finish fleshing out the character's flaws.
• Get to know your character really well.
• Create the character's appearance, background, and personality.  

That all made me think a little bit about the non fiction characters in my life and how hard pressed I would be to write down or verbalize most of those things about my closest loved ones and friends... or about myself for that matter. I think it might make for a better world if more of us could actually name those traits at least semi-accurately about not only the people we know but about ourselves too and talk more about all those things. But that's just me.

I also wonder if the world would be a lot more fun and better place if everyone had seen Sandel and Gilberrt and "The Secret Life of Chaos" and "What Darwin Never Knew" and "The Human Spark". Then maybe more people would stop thinking people like Robertson, Warren and the guy in the local pulpit or their followers know anything at all. They sure as hell don't know how to do the research and have never ever discovered anything. Since laughter is good for us we could benefit greatly by laughing out loud at them. I know, it's hard to see how I got here from that first sentence. But you didn't hear what I did on the radio this afternoon.