It might not be your idea of comfort to sleep with someone lying on your head, and some of us are downright phobic of being crammed together in tight quarters. But there is something enormously sweet as well as terrifying about such intimacy, about letting go of boundaries and defenses so that it is hard to tell where one being leaves off and the other begins.
With what group do you feel the greatest intimacy?
To be [human] is, precisely, to be responsible. It is to know shame at the sight of poverty which is not of our making. It is to be proud of a victory won by our comrades. It is to feel, as we place our stone, that we are contributing to the building of the world.”
―Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
What stone will you place today to contribute to the building of the world?
“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”
―Mahatma Gandhi
What is the best mistake you’ve made recently?
Their vivid pink color is such a central part of how we think of flamingos that they are often referred to as “pink flamingos,” as if their color were part of their very name. But other qualities, like their spindly legs, long necks and curved bills, are really more crucial to what makes a flamingo a flamingo.
In what ways do you go against the expectations people have of you based on the family or groups you belong to?
The blossom of a day lily shows its beauty for only a single day. But the plant blooms for a whole season, since it holds a whole community of flowers which open and bloom and die in their own time.
What community makes you feel that what matters most to you will continue even when you yourself are gone?
