We all have weak moments, moments where we lose faith, but it's our flaws, our weaknesses that make us human. Science now performs miracles like the gods of old, creating life from blood cells or bacteria, or a spark of metal. But they're perfect creatures and in that way they couldn't be less human. There are things machines will never do, they cannot possess faith, they cannot commune with God. They cannot appreciate beauty, they cannot create art. If they ever learn these things, they won't have to destroy us, they'll be us.

The hardest thing is deciding what I should tell you and what not to. Well, anyway, I've got a while yet before you're old enough to understand the tapes. They're more for me at this point... to help get it all straight. Should I tell you about your father? That's a tough one. Will it change your decision to send him here... knowing? But if you don't send Kyle, you could never be. God, you can go crazy thinking about all this... I suppose I'll tell you... I owe him that. And maybe it'll be enough if you know that in the few hours we had together we loved a lifetime's worth.

Don't confuse close with happy

There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.

There is no fate, but what we create.

Great potential for personal empowerment can be found in attending to our awareness of global problems and to our understanding of how they connect with each other and with our personal lives. The process of naming the danger, saying aloud that the threats to life on earth are real, moves us from the numbness of denial to the aliveness that makes action possible.

Know thyself because what else is there to know?