We evolved to be problem-solvers, to create, to be choosers of our own future!

I think back to when I was growing up in Fort Worth, Texas, in the 1950s, during the [John] McCarthy era, with two parents who founded a Unitarian Church. We lived in a little frame house, and my bedroom was just down the hall from the kitchen. My favorite memories of childhood are of the smell of coffee wafting into my bedroom as my parents and their friends talked about the big, important things - about racism and about how to move our country to live its values.

What we need to get right is not focusing on the fear associated with quantity - not enough, scarcity, and lack - and moving instead to a worldview that explores quality and connectedness.

What we see today is a world movement represented by the World Social Forum, involving all sorts of interactions across cultures, not to create some new "ism," but to learn as we walk and to create more democratic forms of social organization that re-embed economic life in community.

I think that fear of embarrassment is the essence of the human challenge.

There are surprising turning points; there is the straw that breaks the camel's back, and you never know if your action could be the straw.

There is no formula. We all must become spirited inventors. There's no single answer - not even a single starting point. Even the 'teachers' ... don't offer us the answer. They do offer us approaches, ways of thinking, possibilities we can adapt, and hope that might generate in us wholly new ideas.