People have beliefs and this is really where the problem lies. I have a few beliefs myself, not many. In 1998 Cher asked me over and over and over again if I believe in life after love and I still haven't decided. I wish she'd stop asking, it's getting on my nerves. Mostly I have leanings and preferences and indefensible biases and irrational likes and dislikes and deep-seated aversions with obscure and not very interesting origins and unstable penchants and vagaries, my god the vagaries. Under the hood I am an amiably chugging automaton like everyone else, with a thin outer surface composed almost entirely of whim and prejudice. A sprinkling of hypocrisy and voila, a person. Where are my convictions? I swear I was promised convictions, perhaps in middle school, although it might have been on television. Instead I am a rusty junkyard robot held together with churning appetites and clanking crotchets. If I developed a few more convictions and beliefs I would have more to say and a stable perspective from which to assess the sensible, unhackneyed, and quite beautifully expressed opinions of others as found on thousands of personal blogs that are updated daily, good reads good reads. Thank goodness everyone isn't like me, society would be in deep trouble, but of course we know that society is in fact thriving and not writhing in its terminal agony at all. Luckily, most people have many convictions and beliefs which are reasonable and well-considered and do not contradict one another in any way and they enjoy persuading other members of society of the rightness of their views, a common occurrence in our healthy democratic society. I must examine these people and maybe emulate them and try to acquire some beliefs of my own. I've got plenty of room in my head for personal beliefs now that I've given up on fantasy baseball once and for all.