I had heard so much negative talk about our generation, that we're slackers and young fogies, that I knew wasn't true of the people I know.

We all want merit to mean something, and we all may be tempted to reduce that meaning to something measurable and concrete like an SAT score. The reality, though, is that who deserves entry into an institution depends on what the institution exists to do.

The boomers will eventually have to accept that it is not possible to stay young forever or to stop aging. But it is possible by committing to show up for each others in community after community, to earn a measure of immortality.

You want to defend citizenship? Don't persecute or isolate those without papers. Just live like a citizen. That'd be a first-class way to be American.

Today, public understanding of our past and our system of government is pitifully low.

What does purpose mean? It means the deepest desire for our short lives to mean something. . . . To speak a language of purpose is to return to first principles and to be able to answer, in plain English, the plain questions of Why? Why should we chip in to help someone else? Why should we defer gratification? Why should we care about the long term? Why should we trust anyone who seems to be limiting our ability to do what we want?

Society becomes how you behave.