More great posts, ntr and Capp...I don't know where to begin responding, especially because I'm a bit short on time, so I'll just throw out some thoughts.

Capp, you asked me if I felt relief after the story I told you. To tell you the truth, I didn't feel so much relief as resigned to my fate. But it was odd...even before I reached the 2nd closed Internet cafe, which really marked the end of my journey that night, I had a feeling the place would be closed. I already had that feeling that events were conspiring against me (or rather for me, I suppose) that night.

You know what's even stranger? Sometimes, when I'm in a dark mood, I think that I inadvertently avoided death that day. Like in those Final Destination movies, where the characters cheat death, only to have it catch up on them. And then I think it will catch up to me. But I try to avoid such dark thoughts as much as I can. I just try to look at the incident from all angles, I suppose.

Sorry if my response wasn't more uplifting. I am grateful to have made it through that night, and if there was someone or something looking out for me, and really thought I deserved a second chance, than I appreciate the opportunity, and I think I've done as much as I can to make the most of it. There, that sounds a bit better.

ntr, if you're into ancient philosophies, you might want to check out Neoplatonism, if you haven't already. It's a philosophy that many Christians actually held in the early days of that religion. Basically the idea was that there was a "centre" of the universe which was all good, and essentially God, and then concentric circles around this centre representing successively lesser beings. So we humans would be on one of the outer circles. What's interesting is that they thought we could "break through" into the inner circles through meditation. They also didn't fit evil into their thinking, believing that evil was merely a "lack" of good. Hmm...

Sometimes I do feel as if there is some grand good vs. evil battle going on out there, but that we totally misinterpret it. We think that fighting wars is the way to beat evil, when really it's the little choices we make each day that shape who we are and our place in this battle...ntr posted similar stuff about this earlier. So many people live only for money and possessions, yet think they are "good" because they live in the right part of the world, or are a citizen of the right country, or whatever. We sure have things backwards these days a lot of the time.