I was very much a child of the 1960s. I protested the Vietnam War and grew up in a fairly politicized home. My father was like a cross between William Kunstler and Zorba the Greek. I grew up among left-wing lawyers.

We're hallucinating. And that's what this world is: a mass hallucination, where fear seems more real than love. Fear is an illusion. Our craziness, paranoia, anxiety and trauma are literally all imagined.

The world loves us when we choose to love the world.

I think the heartbreak of September 11 - America's grief not only over the loss of life but also the loss of our own innocence -has expanded us as people because it has tenderized our hearts. On a psychological level, the American people have matured as a result of that awful day.

Everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it.

Citizens should be looked to for what they can give of their own nobility, virtue, creative thinking, passion, and natural talent for community building and relating to others.

I don't feel there is any spiritual or metaphysical justification for turning our backs on human suffering.