Memories of Molly

Making a leap of faith around what other people are like helps to humanise the world. Whenever we encounter a stranger, we are not really encountering such a person; we are encountering someone who is in basic ways very much like us, despite surface evidence to the contrary. Therefore, nothing fundamental stands between us and the possibility of re

We all have the same beginning—birth—and we all have the same end—death. So how different can we be?

We exist, not as wholly singular, autonomous beings, nor completely merged, but in a fluctuating space in between. This idea was expressed beautifully in Desmond Tutu’s explanation of the South African concept of Ubuntu. He said, “It is to say, my humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours. We belong in a bundle of life. We say a per

Even in the midst of civil strife and hard conversations, I try to return to the great humanistic declaration made by the Roman dramatist Terence: “I am human, and nothing human is alien to me.”

We are different, you and I, and the qualia of our consciousnesses are as divergent as two stars at the ends of the universe. And yet, whatever has been lost in translation in the long journey of my thoughts through the maze of civilization to your mind, I think you do understand me, and you think you do understand me. Our minds managed to touch, i