Maybe it's the pessimist in me asserting it's ugly head. 2009 has started off better for me than most years in recent memory, going back to 2000 when the house burned down.

I have this uneasy feeling that things are going to turn ugly. I'm not sure I deserve to be a happy person. The worst part of this, thinking this way eventually turns into a self fulfilling prophecy.

A good night last night, better than I've had in a long time.

We all need a cause, the more lost the cause, the better. One of the strangest things about being a human, we need to have a goal, something to strive for.

I'm not normally a fan of Nietzsche, but there is a passage of his that resonates with me "the only cause worth fighting for is a lost cause, all others are merely effects". I heard this for the first time when I was about 10, and it's stuck with me for nearly 30 years.

It's easy to wrap yourself up in a feel good cause "I'm opposed to child pornography" or "I'm opposed to clubbing baby seals". The causes I find interesting are the ones that are ignored, the causes that when people find out I'm interested in them, make people cock their eyebrow and say "really?".

I found myself in the minority in those dark days after 9/11 advocating personal privacy rights, however as the abuses became apparent, more people jumped on that cause. The damage was done however.

Prisoner rights interest me, as do freedom of expression causes. The second in particular is a mercurial one, a knee jerk reaction is "so am I". However, believing in freedom of expression is an all or nothing proposition. I'm as left wing as they come, but do I have the gumption to protest along side Neo Nazis in order to protect their freedom to express themselves?

2009 has been good to me so far.