So often loneliness comes from being out of touch with parts of oneself. We go searching for those parts in other people, but there's a difference between feeling separate from others and separate from oneself.

The knowing, I told myself, is only a vapor of the mind, and yet it can wreck havok with one's sanity.

Despite not knowing if what he felt from moment to moment would pass or last forever, he entered fully into his shifting states of violent rage, self-pity, longing, heartbreak, cynicism, without losing the ability to think about what was happening to him. That took courage, I thought, living with the suffering in a mindful way, as an artifact of being, neither good nor bad.

Adult bats don't weigh much. They're mainly fur and appetite.

Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.

Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.

And yet, words are the passkeys to our souls. Without them, we can't really share the enormity of our lives.