But isn't this a dance? Isn't all of this a dance? Isn't that what we do with words? Isn't that what we do when we talk, when we spar, when we make plans or leave it to chance? Some of it's choreographed. Some of the steps have been done for ages. And the rest -- the rest is spontaneous. The rest has to be decided on the floor, in the moment, before the music ends.

I try to convince myself that it's the alcohol talking. But alcohol can't talk. It just sits there. It can't even get itself out of the bottle.

It's only in the finer points that it gets complicated and contentious, the inability to realize that no matter what our religion or gender or race or geographic background, we all have about 98 percent in common with each other.... For whatever reason, we like to focus on the 2 percent that's different, and most of the conflict in the world comes from that.

Neophyte, n. There are millions upon millions of people who have been through this before-- why is it that no one can give my good advice?

I had made it somewhere special, and I'd gotten there all on my own. Nobody had given it to me. Nobody had told me to do it. I'd climbed and climbed and climbed, and this was my reward. To watch over the world, and to be alone with myself. That, I found, was what I needed.

I am not dangerous. Only the stories are dangerous. Only the fictions we create, especially when they become expectations.

This, I think, is how people survive: Even when horrible things have been done to us, we can still find gratitude in one another.