I met this philosopher once. He was a janitor. And he told me, “I have a big home in Northbend.” I smiled and listened to him while he changed the cafeteria trash cans. Suddenly, one of the kids I was watching got into a fight. I grabbed his arm and ushered him into the nearest closet. It was the janitor’s office and it was filled with tools. The boy grabbed a hammer and came at me. “Get out of the way,” he said.

“I can’t let you do that,” I replied. My adrenaline exploded. I talked him down and after the incident I was high for hours. It’s difficult to know if chemicals create meaning or something else, but that day I knew I’d done something special, something no other person could have done. Things are just ideas. But when things are only things, they lose their meaning. It is the ideas we attach to them that make them great. I’m presented with battles constantly and I don’t know why. They may be a test to live better, or to have the courage to do things differently.