Over and over during 2016 -- capped by the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency -- we've shown how easy it is, and how seductive, to reduce people to a single identity. We flatten them into a caricature, we prepare to strip them of their humanity, and we ready ourselves to be disburdened of our conscientious self-control.
Read MoreWhat is the point of sight? It's a costly endeavor; it commands approximately one-third of your brain's volume and up to two-thirds of your cognitive processing power. But what is it meant to accomplish? Intuitively, the answer seems obvious: sight is meant to accurately represent the world around you.
Read MoreI forget nature as a city dweller. Where would one find the natural world in canyons of concrete and steel, prowled by fume-spewing cars and trucks, lit by the harsh glow of artificial lights?
Read MoreOn some level, we all want to be normal. We all want to belong. Yet most of us feel that one or many parts of us are disastrously different.
James Cameron became the person he imagined when he was a kid. In his talk, "Before Avatar … a curious boy," he tells how he learned that curiosity is one's most powerful possession, that imagination is a force that can manifest a reality, and that respect from people around you is the most important thing in the world.
To be an educated black person whose default speech is not the kind that most would describe as "sounding black" is to be irritated, now and then, by being told that one is "articulate."
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