There are times when you felt especially important to another person, or cared about or loved or accepted. Well, loving relationships aren't something you can have like a precious little jewel you put in a box and then put on your shelf. It's something you walk towards. And there's always difficulties; there's always pain in relationships. But you can keep walking towards that beacon in the distance. That process, that journey, is called life. And if you're moving towards the things that you value, life is more vital, flowing; it's more empowering.

Your history's not going to go away; it isn't the same thing as dirt on the floor or paint peeling off the walls; it's not going to be solved in that way. It's more like learning how to carry it, to contact it, to see it. Because it's based on the psychology of the normal, the therapist is part of that too. And so they too are working with those very same processes. And so it requires a therapist just to see the value of it and to be willing to look at their own difficult emotions and thoughts and find a way to carry them gently in the service of the clients that they're serving.

When we fly planes over countries, dropping bombs on the evil ones, I think we're doing something very similar to what's being done when the infidels are getting their comeuppance with planes going into buildings. So it's gotten to the point where if we are not healthy psychologically as a human society, we will not have a planet to live on. And that's what keeps me up at night, when I see so little focus on the behavioral side of these problems, and the idea that just politics, or just physical science, is going to solve this.

The mental cognitive processes that we're targeting are ones that narrow human beings' repertoire and make it harder for them to learn to be more flexible, to take advantage of the opportunities in front of them. We can have something to help with in areas like child development or organizations and schools, or maybe even how peoples interact with each other, one to the other. We've taken the work into things like prejudice and stigma, because if we can't solve that we have planes flying into buildings. So it applies broadly because anywhere that a human mind goes these processes go.

I think we're coming into a time where it has to do with how you stand in relationship to your own world within and in relationship to those around you in the world without. And I believe these are the things that we need to put into our schools, education, into our psychotherapy and into our culture more, finding a way to not be so harsh and judgmental, so objectifying and dehumanizing, constantly focused within and trying to get these difficult thoughts and feelings to go away.

I kind of look at what's on the T-shirts and I see another solution, which also worries me. I see "Just do it." "No fear." - this kind of suppressive response to the treacle that the culture tries to define for us as a meaningful life also blows up on you. "No fear" is not something that you should put on your shirt. How about "I can hold my fear and still connect with you"? Put that on your shirt. "It's okay to be me, with all of my history." Put that on your shirt.

There is a middle path between indulgence and suppression, but the culture has overwhelmed that in the cacophony that has been created in the modern world and the commercial encouragement of avoidance and indulgence on the one hand, or suppression and "just do it," treating yourself as an object on the other. We've got to find a way that's more compassionate, softer, that allows us to move forward towards the kind of lives that we really want to live.