pools, pictures, and people

Good evening folks! I hope you all are enjoying your summers as I am.
After breakfast, it started raining. That completely foiled my plan to go to the wharf and take pictures. But luckily, the rain simmered down and I went to the wharf.
I went on the rocks and took some shots, but be warned if you try this: the wet rocks or the dark rocks are always slippery. Hold onto dry ones and be careful. But after that I wandered off onto some private property rocks, but they overlooked the ocean, which is obviously not private. So I sort of hovered over public property. No big deal. I got some amazing shots because the sun was coming out, but the dark cloudy sky blended with the blue of the ocean and it looked completely surreal. That's the best part about photography; it's always inspiring because the subjects are endless.
Then we visited my great aunt and they had a pool (so many great aunts with pools!) and we stayed awhile. My brother is sleeping over there actually. It was so much fun and we had a great time talking, swimming, and catching up on things. And the weather took a turn for the better which made everything better.
Sometimes it's nice to have the newest phone, or the next technological "it" thing, but really, nothing beats human interactions - friends, family, neighbors, and just other people (like the sketchy wharf-goers). Every moment we have here is special, and we can't forget that.
I'd also like to leave with another thought in mind. In case you don't know, there was a big bombing / shooting in Norway on a small island (don't know the details). About 90 people died, all of them young, and the shooting was based on extreme contempt towards Muslim migration and other ideas. The suspect, who admitted to the insidious crimes, was a conservative who apparently was a Christian.
Regardless of religion, people are people. We aren't different on the inside; Muslims don't have different organs than Christians, Jews don't have different blood than Hindus. We look different on the outside, but no one could tell the difference between us if we were all blind. Basically, looks don't matter.
But fundamentally, they do. We judge people, we know off the bat if we like someone or don't. This applies to groups too. For various reasons, justified or not, we have predispositions to not like someone or a group. We might know nothing about them. But we still judge.
We can't ever stop ourselves from judging others. But we can change the way we judge people. We can base our judgements off of facts, not assumptions or generalizations, and we can be more open to change and new ideas; ones that may challenge our perceptions and values.
The sad thing is, it takes a tragedy to make us realize these things; and some don't even see past it and realize what can come out of something like this. How many more tragedies will it take to knock some sense into us?