**Warning: there are no literary discussions, cute pictures, or fun things in this post. If you're not up for a bleak look at your fellow man, move along. **

As much as people like to believe that we're a naturally superior species who are driven by logic and our own self-will, one only has to observe humans in action to realize that doesn't work. Humans are a mass of chemical-driven responses and instincts.

Vengeance is chemically rewarded, it appears. It explains quite a bit about the way people act. Ever cut someone off while driving, even accidentally? Notice the swerving and light flashing and middle-finger waving right before they swerve into the median to get around you, cut you off, and stomp on their brakes? Ever wondered why, especially if it was an accident, or if you "cut them off" approximately 5 car lengths ahead? Well, there ya go.

In part: Planning revenge sparks enough satisfaction to motivate getting even -- and the amount of satisfaction actually predicts who will go to greater lengths to do so, report Swiss researchers who monitored people's brain activity during an elaborate game of double-cross.

Could this explain the guy who set a 9 month old kitten on fire and threw it off the balcony because -- get this -- the kitten peed on the carpet?

Well, I'm in a chipper mood, I guess. Probably the story I'm working on.