What gave her [Diane Wilson] the courage? If you look at someone like Diane, it's easy to say, well I could never be like that. But we don't know. We do know that it's possible for a woman, who didn't grow up as a world changer, to find it in herself to take a stand.

History doesn't proceed in incremental little notches.

Recent breakthroughs in science show we have just the capacities we need to face our planet's challenges. We're "soft-wired" for cooperation, empathy, fairness, along with a deep need to "make a dent," as social philosopher Erich Fromm put it. My hunch is that one reason depression is a global pandemic is that the dominant mental map denies so many of us expression of these deep needs and capacities.

The notion that economic life is a distinct realm, governed by immutable laws of narrow self-interest, is giving way to a much older notion: economic life is only one strand in the rich web of human relationships.

The real cause of hunger is the powerlessness of the poor to gain access to the resources they need to feed themselves.

That's what happened when my own life crumbled. The people who came into my life bolstered me to take more risks, to be even more true to myself.

Approaches to growing food that align with nature changed human relationships.