The title of this musing does not refer to some list of best and worst dressed or anything like that.  Rather it refers to the opening line from Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities.  It reads, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."  It was written on 1859 and set in London and Paris during the French Revolution.  That opening line is well known and often used in modern day times.

 

It seems there almost is never a set of circumstances that negatively or positively affects everyone.  No matter if it is war or peace, prosperity or recession, day or night - some always seem to do well under the circumstances and some don't.  And therein lies the rub, as they say.  For those who suffer in a given situation, some do quite well and are happy.

 

Perhaps if you could average the pain with the good fortune it might even out into something neutral, but that never is the case.  We don't live in a neutral world.  There are the haves and the have-nots, the wealthy and the poor, the happy and the sad.  How you feel about things depends on which side of the equation you are on.

 

I have sometimes used the old country saying that goes "the sun don't shine on the same dog's ass everyday", but that is a saying that doesn't always hold true.  For some they live and always will live in a world of comfort and happiness while others are destined to forever exist in the other world.  We live in a bi-polar world.

 

Politicians, diplomats and those feel good psychiatrists try to make things right for those whose lives seem to be ever destined to be miserable, but invariably they fail.  For the poor and the miserable to succeed they typically have to take something from those who have and are happy with the way things are.  Perhaps the average is neutral but it seems there never is a situation where everyone is equal; there will always be two diametrically opposed populations of humanity. 

 

Not everyone can sit on the mountain top of wealth and happiness.  And when someone makes it to the top of the mountain, invariably someone else is pushed off.  That is a hard truth to swallow but it is true.