Be as the Lama

No I haven't misspelt "Llama." I completed a "Political Compass" questionnaire, which attempts (through the use of a series of sometimes very leading questions) to ascertain your political/social/economic orientation, and I discovered, much to my delight, that I fall more or less exactly where the Dalai Lama does on the graph it spits out at the end.

Observe:

You see where the Dalai Lama is? That's pretty much exactly where I am. I find this interesting, because altruism is one of the tenets I try to live my life by.

It's not easy to live your life by something you believe in, because the temptation to be human is present at all times, and I believe that it is usually at odds with higher things like generosity and selflessness. I wish this wasn't so because, on those rare occasions when I sit down and watch the news, more often than not I feel ashamed to be human.

Don't misunderstand me here: I believe that humans are capable of acts of astounding selflessness, pure beauty and outright heroism. Yet it is the very fact that these occurences are so amazing that saddens me, because if they didn't amaze us it would mean that they were more commonplace.