But there's the catch. I'd like to live that seemingly carefree and happy life for an evening, a few days, a week. At the end of that week I'd be exhausted, and would be grateful to the first person to talk to me about something meaningful. I want friends, not admirers. People who respect me for my character and my deeds, not my flattering smile. The circle around me would be much smaller, but what does that matter, as long as they're sincere?

Now she and I sit together in her room and eat chocolate, and I tell her that in a very long time when we both to go heaven, we should try to get chairs next to each other, close to the dessert table.

One of the immutable laws of being human is that the people who show up are the right people.

But when someone enters that valley with you, that mud, it somehow saves you again.

It may strike you as a small miracle that you have someone in your life, whose taste you admire, who will tell you the truth and help you stay on the straight and narrow, or find your way back to it if you are lost.

One of the immutable laws of being human is that the people who show up are the right people.

I felt that in my strange new friends and in certain new books, I was meeting my other half. Some people wanted to get rich or famous, but my friends and I wanted to get real. We wanted to get deep. (Also, I suppose, we wanted to get laid.) I devoured books like a person taking vitamins, afraid that otherwise I would remain this gelatinous narcissist, with no possibility of ever becoming thoughtful, of ever being taken seriously.

These days are among the hardest we will ever live through. The wind is blowing, but because we are together in this, we have hope. Most days. Maybe more than ever before in my lifetime, my friends and I are aware of our brokenness and the deep crazy, the desperation for light, hope, food, and medicine for poor. What helps is that we are not all crazy and hopeless on the same day. one of us remembers and reminds the rest of us that when it is really dark you can see the stars.

All it takes is one safe person to listen, to hear, to noodge us to start over and not give up.

A movement is thrilling. It's the work of many people, all connected, all seeking something better.

It's human nature to be weird, but also human to be lonely. This conflict between fitting in and standing out is at the core of who we are.

Each of us can show up in our own way, but the choice is the same: to lead, to create work that matters, and to find the magic that happens when we are lucky enough to cocreate with people who care.