Optimists are happier in life for a reason.
Freedom, that's the kind of power I'm interested in. When we help each other get free, then it's not about anybody being on top or anybody being on the bottom. It's about being together, in a community.
It seems to me there's this tyranny that's not accidental or incidental, to make women feel compelled to look like somebody they're not. I think the effort is being made to get us to turn our time and attention to this instead of important political issues.
I think there are so many children being brought up in some form of violence, be it violence of poverty or sexism or racism or homophobia or transphobia. That violence takes a life to transform or overcome. I don't think people should be spending their lives dealing with that. I think people should be thriving, playing, creating, evolving.
I don't get tired, because every time a woman doesn't die or doesn't get beaten or doesn't get raped or doesn't get honor-killed or doesn't get acid-burned, it's a huge victory.
We get off track. Capitalism takes us off track. You get off the "real" and get on the "wheel. " The "wheel" becomes the winning and losing, the succeeding and failing, the "I will achieve. " All that stuff becomes so preoccupying, particularly if you're born with low self-esteem, or no sense of yourself, or even if you're just born in the consumer culture. It's very powerful.
I think so much of my early life, even though I grew up White and middle class, I was completely shattered by the horrifically violent atmosphere I grew up in. I am a consequence of violence. That opened a door to many realities that I would not have experienced had I not survived what I did.
Our border patrol does a great job under these very dangerous conditions. They use very sophisticated equipment, including gamma rays, to detect drugs and illegal immigrants as they enter the U. S.
What has worked for America is not caring about how the rich are doing, or the politics of envy. What's worked for America is growth. Growth is the reason why I had a very nice middle class upbringing with parents who never went to college.
The technology itself is not transformative. It's the school, the pedagogy, that is transformative.
Play on the frontiers of technology. Be ahead of the tomorrows.