i took a long walk and only fell once

I'm reading this book called shantaram. its about a man who escapes from prison in australia and hides in india. its very good. its also very long. i like that, it makes me feel safe and comfortable to have a book around for a long time. i can space it out and read a few chapters at a time. sometimes, with short books, i tend to read them all at once and then they're gone.

so, in this book it says,

" ... and you can't change anything. you can't do anything about it. you have to accept that things could be worse, and they'll never be better, and you're completely helpless in the face of it.

'its good to know what's wrong with the world,' karla said, after a while. 'but its just as important to know that sometimes, no matter how wrong it is, you can't change it. a lot of bad stuff in the world wasn't really that bad until someone tried to change it.'

'i'm not sure i want to believe that. i know you're right. i know we make things worse sometimes, the more we try to make them better. but i want to believe that if we do it right, everything and everyone can change for the better."

i think that sums up my internal monologue right now. i'm trying to figure out what the "do it right" part means. that's the work part; the devil is in the details. the world is suffering and suffering is the world. the dalai lama says the first thing to do is identify the causes of suffering and then try to eliminate them.