This tendency to regard people as “other”—as categorically different from ourselves—extends also to places and things: they are not ours; they are alien to us.

We have control over so little—a truth that is sometimes exceptionally bitter—but we can choose to care, and we can choose to act. That is the truth that frees us.

One single cause is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to isolate in complex systems, so in the effort to create change, we must consider the interconnections among the many causes we can identify.

We don’t live in isolated silos, disconnected from everyone else—it just feels that way sometimes. What happens to others inevitably affects us.

We don’t all share the same degree or type of pain, but we share the vulnerability of loss, of change. We can lie in bed feeling helpless and unseen.

Equanimity holds it all. Peace is not about moving away from or transcending all the pain in order to travel to an easeful, spacious realm of relief: we cradle both the immense sorrow and the wondrousness of life at the same time.

Agency takes over when it isn’t enough to simply feel bad about a situation, write a disconsolate tweet, or vaguely note that something should be done.

the same disruption that leads to people protesting in the streets is also connected to any liberation from groupthink that enables people to hear and heed their own drum beat a little better—to even remember it’s there.

I am reminded to look for what is whole, integrated, undamaged, even in the face of devastation or loss.