“The people came to fear even their closest neighbors. At the level of the individual, the community, and the nation, people sought signs of others’ ill intentions; and everywhere they looked, they found them, for this is what looking does.”

And it is fragile. It can be blackened by fear, and superstition. By the year 2050, when the conflict began, the world had fallen upon fearful, superstitious times.

I write with teenagers in mind.

In the end, living is defined by dying. Book-ended by oblivion, we are caught in the vice of terror, squeezed to bursting by the approaching end. Fear is ever-present, waiting to be called to the surface. Change brought fear, and fear brought destruction.

Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism.

I try not to be surprised. Surprise is the public face of a mind that has been closed.

Science is a little bit more than a wonderful way of modelling and predicting; its a wonderful technical abstraction. I think science is a really wonderful technical abstraction.

Consciousness is the feel of accessing memory.

The more the media peddled fear, the more the people lost the ability to believe in one another. For every new ill that befell them, the media created an explanation, and the explanation always had a face and a name.

Are you saying a society wracked by plague is preferable to one wracked by indifference?

I cannot choose to ignore this feeling, of life slowly bleeding out of me. I cannot ignore the fact that life only makes sense to me when I see a smile, or feel another hand in mine.

Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence.

The mind is not a machine, it is an idea. And the Idea resists all attempts to control it.

… from our vantage point it is now clear that the only thing the population had to fear was fear itself.

In the end, living is defined by dying.

Superstition is the need to view the world in terms of simple cause and effect.

Our world is limited by the machinery we carry. Its very different to the 18th and 19th century Enlightenment scientists who were mostly men of God and thought it was their quest to uncover Gods great plan.

[W]here there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community.

The memory of the financial community is proverbially and distressingly short.

I’M SAD, because another young life was lost from his family, the racial divide has widened, a community is in shambles, accusations, insensitivity hurt and hatred are boiling over, and we may never know the truth about what happened that day.

The scientific community says that if you even mention God as causes of anything scientific, you’re gone.

I know that there are many peaceful Muslims who do not adhere to these beliefs. But until these tenants are fully renounced…I cannot advocate any Muslim candidate for President.

I felt like I was cheating myself of those communities and cheating the audience because I wasn’t able to know them. That’s what the bikes did, without me having to put any arbitrary philosophy on what it was supposed to be. It enabled human connection.

I have a lot of intention behind what I put out there. The reason all this stuff I do works together, the environmental and social, collaborating with ballet companies to score a show, the bike tour – all of that stuff comes together through community building with music.

I call for the need of world leaders to address climate change and reduce the increasing risk of disasters- and world leaders must include mayors, townships and community leaders.