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Category: interconnectedness

Posted
January 7, 2020
Category
character sketch, interconnectedness, kindness, life philosophy, On My Block, writing
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2 Responses

George

Thereโ€™s this line in Eat Pray Love about Quest Physics. The idea that life is a spiritual journey and everyone we encounter along the way is our teacher, nudging us down the path to enlightenment. I believe this. My most recent teacher is Big George. He moved into the bunk next to me when my friend Menu went home. The exchange was about as seamless as the Obama/Trump White House transition.

George is a 300-pound, 47-year-old man, but mentally heโ€™s somewhere around age 10. It took all of two seconds of conversation to realize this. From the moment he dragged his property down my row and plopped down across from me, I knew he was going to be a character. I had no idea…

โ€œCan I borrow some cookies? What are you writing? Are you eating again? Who sent you that letter? The Dolphins suck!โ€ Big George has not shut up since he moved in. At first it was funny. Then it was irritating. Finally, it reached the point where I had to keep my headphones in at all times. Dude is driven by the compulsion to contaminate every precious sliver of silence with mindless chatter. He canโ€™t help himself. Even as I write this, heโ€™s sitting over there, two feet to my left, narrating the comings and goings of the dorm in his signature whiny nasal voice. Big George doesnโ€™t talk. He squawks. The only time he ever shuts up is when heโ€™s shoveling food into his face.

A few months ago he says, โ€œYou think youโ€™re so cool just because you wrote a book. Iโ€™m gonna write a book and itโ€™s gonna be way better than yours.โ€ Then a couple weeks later, โ€œHey Malcolm! You wanna be in my book? Iโ€™m a CIA agent with two samurai swords and I own a car dealership with a strip bar on the roof. Buy a car and get a free lap dance!โ€ Heโ€™s been over there writing away ever since.

Full disclosure: I was dealing with a vicious bout of writers block for most of 2019 so it was especially infuriating to look over and see his pen gliding effortlessly across his notebook while I thrashed and groped for words. Occasionally, he would catch me staring at the blank page and hit me with that halfwit smile of his. โ€œWhat are you doing over there? You havenโ€™t written anything! Iโ€™m already on page 85.โ€

Grrrr.

โ€œWanna read a little bit?โ€ he offered one day.
I did not. But thereโ€™s this egocentric part of me that looks in the mirror and sees a writing instructor, sent to assist the unwashed and illiterate. So I sighed and held out my hand.

It was worse than I imagined. Third-grader handwriting, atrocious punctuation, no indentation. The words that werenโ€™t misspelled just trailed off into scribble. I looked up to find him smiling like an expectant chef who had just served up the house special. He raised his eyebrows.

I told him it was garbage. Told him he was trying to fly before he could walk. Told him he should learn the fundamentals first. He needed to write good sentences before he could write good paragraphs, much less good books. He was highly indignant, insisted that I read more. I shook my head and handed him back his manuscript.

โ€œWrite me one good sentence and Iโ€™ll think about it,โ€ I said. โ€œOne simple sentence, but it has to be capitalized, punctuated, and spelled correctly. Can you do that?โ€ He tore a piece of paper from his notebook and went straight to work, tongue out, brow furrowed in concentration as he made his letters. When he finished he passed it across the aisle and gave me the chef look again, obviously very pleased with himself. I glanced down at the paper. โ€œMy name is Georg!โ€ Almost, man.

It didnโ€™t take long for the rest of the dorm to smell blood in the water. Prison is similar to the schoolyard. Remember the bullies from your childhood? They didnโ€™t have spiritual awakenings and change their lives. They grew up and came here, where they perfected their methods of cruelty. โ€œLook at you,โ€ one sneered at him the other day. โ€œItโ€™s people like you who make me realize that things arenโ€™t so bad after all.โ€

He shrugged innocently. โ€œWhy? Whatโ€™s so special about me?โ€

See what Iโ€™m saying? Clueless. Big George was born with a โ€œkick meโ€ sign on his ass. Of course, he doesnโ€™t make things any easier by constantly drawing attention to himself. Iโ€™ve even gotten in on the action. One day when he wouldnโ€™t shut up, Mr. Benevolent Writing Professor himself pulled back a rubber band and snapped him right on a fat roll. โ€œOuch!โ€ he exclaimed. โ€œWhatโ€™d you do that for?โ€ It left a red welt. Not one of my finest moments.

But it may have been a defining moment. Quest Physics. Life is a spiritual journey and everyone we encounter along the way is our teacher. Even the Big Georges of the world. Especially the Big Georges. Thatโ€™s not me. Prison is oppressive enough without some dick popping you with a rubber band just because youโ€™re different.

Which brings me to New Yearโ€™s… The best holiday in my little corner of the universe. Way better than Christmas. Nothing like another year down, another year closer to home. I spent the final week of 2019 like many citizens of the world, taking personal inventory, getting my house in order, figuring out my goals and resolutions for 2020. For me, itโ€™s the usual suspects โ€” finish current novel, write more essays, build strength, increase flexibility, hydrate, read more, listen better, be more efficient with time… But this year, kindness and tolerance surge back to the top of the leader board. I lost my way over the last 12 months. It took a CIA agent with samurai swords to lead me out of the wilderness. They say that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Iโ€™m fortunate to have crossed paths with Big Georg.

Love you guys. Happy 2020!

Posted
July 13, 2018
Category
interconnectedness, life philosophy, miscellaneous, writing
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1 Response

A spectacular life

I have never watched Parts Unknown, never eaten at New Yorkโ€™s Brasserie Les Halles, never read Kitchen Confidential, yet Iโ€™m a huge fan of Anthony Bourdain. I first heard of him on NPRโ€™s Fresh Air. When Terry Gross introduced him as a chef, I reached for my radio to change the station.

โ€œAnthony Bourdain, welcome to Fresh Airโ€ฆโ€

I know the foodie movement is a thing out there in the real world, but here in the land of starch-grenades and watered-down pudding, the culinary craze never caught fire. I had better things to do than waste Duracell juice on some Yankee pontificating on the subtle art of five-star cuisine.

Then he began to speak โ€ฆ and I knew I wasnโ€™t going anywhere.

Dude was a natural-born storyteller. For the length of the interview, I was transported from my tiny prison cell in the Florida Panhandle to a bustling New York City kitchen, to a raft in the Mekong Delta, through jungles, across deserts, over mountains and beyond. To some of the most remote locations on the globe. To parts unknown.

Despite the diametrically polar trajectories of our lives, it became clear as I listened that Mr. Bourdain was a kindred spirit. This seems strange to say about a guy whoโ€™s eaten lamb nuts, wart hog rectum, and raw seal eyeball (especially considering that my soft ass wonโ€™t even eat an onion). Maybe it was his early struggles with hard drugs. Or the fact that he made more than his share of horrible choices as a younger man. If nothing else, we most definitely shared in the transformative power of the written word. For him, it meant a springboard to fortune and fame; for me, an identity other than career criminal. By the end of the interview, I was a fan.

When I saw his picture for the first time earlier this year in a Menโ€™s Health magazine, he looked exactly as Iโ€™d imagined โ€” tall (six-foot-four), tattoos, head full of gray hair, and a craggy, lined, lived-in face. The article was about him taking up Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Check out this quote: โ€œLook, Iโ€™m 61 years old. I have limited expectations of how Iโ€™ll do, but every once in a while, I get to feel the will to live drain out of a 22-year-old wrestler.โ€

Hell yeah.

Back to Fresh Air. Iโ€™ve listened to well over a thousand Terry Gross interviews during this prison bid. Musicians, rappers, actors, writers, athletes, activists, comedians, politicians, news correspondents, and other interesting people from all walks of life. Strange that my all-time favorite would be a celebrity chef. But it is. So I was pumped when NPR rebroadcast it a few weeks ago. I settled back on my bunk with a cup of coffee, ready to spend an hour with old friendsโ€ฆ until they cut to break and Dave Davies explained that they were re-airing the interview because Anthony Bourdain had been found unresponsive in a Paris hotel room that morning, his death ruled a suicide. Just as I had been introduced to his life via Fresh Air, I was now being informed of his departure through the same program. Talk about full circle.

Mr. Bourdain was obviously a seeker, same as all of us. He overturned stones through art, food, travel, chemicals, relationships, and even jiu-jitsu along the journey. But what exactly was he seeking? What are any of us seeking? Meaning. Gratification. Connectivity. Belonging. That unnamed and ever-beckoning โ€œit.โ€

I know many will judge him strictly on the nature of his passing. But the span of a human life is much too complex to be defined by a single instance. Though his suicide was heartbreaking, it was still a single instance, the final instance of a pretty spectacular life.

I continue to be inspired by him.

Posted
March 16, 2018
Category
interconnectedness, life philosophy
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Synchronicity, King of Coincidence

“Many miles away, something crawls to the surface of a dark Scottish loch.” โ€“ Synchronicity, The Police

Sometimes I fall asleep listening to AM radio. Knocks me right out. A few months ago, I awoke sometime after midnight with the cord wrapped twice around my neck and hanging off the side of my bunk. Coast to Coast was on. The guest was psychotherapist and quantum theorist Mel Schwartz. He was talking about synchronicity. Specifically about the tsunami of 2004, the humanitarian calamity it wrought and how, although it claimed roughly 230,000 human lives, there were surprisingly few animal bodies found in the aftermath. He attributed this to a sixth sense long atrophied in human beings due to lack of use. He went on to say that at the exact same time that he was typing an essay about this phenomenon on the other side of the globe, a bird flew into his room and perched on his chair. Synchronicity.

As I staggered to the bathroom, half-listening, half-asleep, an elusive plot point from my latest novel, Sticks & Stones, suddenly clicked into place. (If you’ve read it, it’s the part about the drone.) Now I was wide awake. It dawned on me that had I not fallen asleep with the radio on, I might have never awoken to receive this pivotal building block of my then-novel-in-progress. The fact that this occurred while the dude on the radio was discussing synchronicity really blew me away.

Coincidences โ€ฆ chance happenings or mystical experiences? I once heard someone refer to them as “God winks.” A 2015 Esquire article divides them into four distinct categories:

โˆž Synchronicity โ€“ Two unrelated events collide in a meaningful way. (See above)

โˆž Seriality โ€“ A series of seemingly unrelated events lead to a noteworthy event. You usually take the bus to work, but you spilled your morning coffee on your shirt, which made you miss the 7:15. You almost called a cab, but decided to try Uber. The driver is attractive. You ask her out. Two years later, you’re married and expecting.

โˆž Simulpathity โ€“ The simultaneous experience of another person’s distress. This one usually happens with twins, life-long couples, and parents with their children.

โˆž Serendipity โ€“ Something unexpected and beneficial arises from being at the right place at the right time. Pfizer researchers testing a drug called Sildenafil as a treatment for angina notice a curious side effect: erections. Eureka! Viagra.

Which is your favorite?

Posted
August 11, 2017
Category
interconnectedness, kindness, life philosophy, My Story, On My Block
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4 Responses

The radical choice of militant kindness

The first lesson every young man learns upon entering the prison system is that aggression is king and violence is law. The traits that are valued in the real worldโ€”honesty, generosity, friendlinessโ€”are viewed as weaknesses in prison. Weaknesses that are pounced upon and exploited. Survival in this world depends on at least the perception of brutality and if you’re not particularly brutal, you had better be a damn good actor.

So that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 22 years. Acting. Acting tough, acting hard, acting cold. Acting as if I don’t see the loneliness and sadness and brokenness that surrounds me. Why? Simple: Fear.

In 1992, a scrawny teenage version of myself looked around at the savage world of prison and said to my mind, “Help! I don’t wanna be jumped or stabbed or raped or beaten to death by abusive guards. I wanna make it back home in one piece!” And my mind, amazing babbling problem-solver that it is, said, “I got this,” and went to work on building a wall and posting the ultra-sensitive ego as a sentry to ward off any potential threats. My job was to act. And act I did. I spent so much time acting that I almost lost myself inside the faรงade that was supposed to be protecting me. Almost.

But looking at prison through the eyes of a 40-year-old man is a much different experience than seeing it through the eyes of a scared little 18-year-old kid. And recently, after decades of fortifying this hardened exterior and living with a conditioned mindset that places toughness over all other attributes, a series of books, films, and extraordinary people have wandered into my life with an unmistakable message: there is nothing more honorable, more radical, more standup than the path of kindness. Especially in such a hopeless world.

Suddenlyโ€”no, not suddenlyโ€”gradually, I wanted this more than anything else. Militant kindness. Love without fear. A wide open heart. For someone who has spent years coveting the appearance of fearlessness and physical strength, the concept of kindness, regardless of consequence, was a revelation. A last shot at a life of meaning and authenticity. I wanted to get back to the me I was before all of this acting BS began, back to the kid I built these walls to protect.

Kindness. It seems like such an easy choice. But a crazy thing happens when you drop your guard and step from behind that icy standoffish barrier: people become comfortable around you. Comfortable enough to open up, to confide in you, and occasionally, comfortable enough to hurt you. Or at least say things that are damaging to your ego. But that is what we want, isn’t it? It’s what I want. This lonely half-life of keeping the world at arm’s length for a false sense of safety and to defend the ego is a fool’s game and the exhaustive struggle to continue propping up an illusion is not only cowardice, it’s treasonous.

Only kindness matters.

[This post first appeared on malcolmivey.com 10/30/14 and was featured on Huffington Post on 11/29/14.] 

Posted
March 15, 2017
Category
gun violence, interconnectedness, mass shootings, racism, writing
Comments
2 Responses

Dum Spiro Spero

In my latest novel, On the Shoulders of Giants, one of the protagonists, Ezra James, oftendandelion-wind references the universe when it comes to inspiration. Even the title of the book, which Ezra lifts from a President Obama speech, is more the result of serendipitous coincidence than meticulous plotting.

Like the story’s protagonist, I too am a big believer in the universe. This is the source from which creative magic flows. There’s a reason why so many artists shrug off compliments regarding their work: It feels like a scam to accept credit for something that is clearly ether-born. Sure, the writer provides the discipline by sitting in front of a computer for hours, as does the painter at the easel and the musician strumming the guitar. Sentence by brush stroke by chord, we plod along. Progress is minimal. But if we sit there long enough, lightning cracks, the sky opens, our eyes glaze over and the Bradburian effect kicks in. “…and when their souls grew warm, they were poets.” We can take credit if we want, but the truth is, in that moment, we are plugged into something greater. Something mystical. We are conduits. The universe is moving through us.

I came across the Latin phrase dum spiro spero in a Merriam-Webster dictionary a few years ago while searching for a cool tattoo. The meaning, while I breathe I hope, resonated with me. So much so that I wove it into the novel as a plot point regarding lost love. At least I thought that was the purpose.

Here’s where the universe comes in. It wasn’t until the book was finished and on the shelf that I learned that dum spiro spero is also the state motto of South Carolina. Blew me away.

I’ve never been to South Carolina, don’t know anyone in South Carolina, but like most Americans, I was heartbroken and outraged when Dylan Roof walked into the Emanuel A.M.E. Church and murdered those nine black parishioners. Pure evil. But what was also shocking was the reaction of the people of Charleston. There were no race riots, no rumors of retaliation, no violence. Just a candlelight vigil for the victims where people of all races mourned the loss of their neighbors. Even the survivors of this heartless, senseless, spineless execution said they were praying for the killer.

I’m honored that On the Shoulders of Giants, a novel that deals largely with the topic of race, contains the state motto of such beautiful people. Although it wasn’t intentional, it wasn’t coincidence either. As Ezra would say, it was pure universe.

Dum spiro spero.

Posted
September 29, 2016
Category
addiction, Criminal Justice Reform, interconnectedness, juvenile life without parole, life philosophy, On My Block, racial prejudice, racism, raising children
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4 Responses

The solution

Given what happened in Chicago over the weekend, a continuation of rampant violence that barely makes the news anymore, I wanted to repost this piece I wrote a few months ago. Unfortunately, it’s still relevant.ย 

The Middle East โ€“ Sunnis and Shiites murdering each other. For territory, for power, over ideology. Death tolls rise along with the level of hopelessness. Every day, violence is a fact of life to which the citizens of places like Baghdad and Aleppo have become desensitized. There is no place too sacred for bloodshed. No mosque, no school, no hospital. In addition to sectarian violence, children have grown up watching their cities and villages bombed by foreign drones, their families and neighbors killed or taken away by foreign soldiers. Flames of hate are fanned by radical clerics. An insidious โ€œus vs. themโ€ mentality seeps into the soul of the people.

The fear and distrust flow both ways, feeding off each other. Too many soldiers have watched their comrades fall to IEDs and sniper fire. Too many service members have witnessed the carnage of suicide bombings.

America โ€“ Drug pushers and gang members murdering each other. For territory, for power, for street cred. Death tolls rise along with the level of hopelessness. Every day, violence is a fact of life to which the citizens of places like Chicago and Oakland have become desensitized. There is no place too sacred for drive-by shootings. No church, no park, no school bus stop. In addition to gang violence and inner city drug wars, children have grown up having their doors kicked in by narcotics officers, seeing their neighbors slammed on car hoods, electrocuted by tasers, sometimes murdered by police, their fathers and brothers taken away in cop cars, often never to return. Flames of hate are fanned by ratings-driven news channels, through bullhorns of activists, and the microphones of rap stars.

The fear and distrust flow both ways, feeding off each other. Too many cops have seen their comrades murdered in the line of duty, in shootouts and chases, and more recently in cold blood, executed over their uniforms.

There is no simple fix to this complex and generational problem. A congressional hearing wonโ€™t solve it. Nor will any new law. The American way of throwing truckloads of tax dollars at the situation wonโ€™t make it go away either. But there is a solution: Love.

Donโ€™t roll your eyes. Naรฏve and idyllic as it sounds, if every pastor, teacher, mentor, and concerned citizen formed a government-backed coalition, a movement to ensure that every inner city kid in America is loved, nurtured, and taught respect for human life, 20 years from now, we would see a major downscale in violence, hate, and intolerance.

This is no hippy-liberal, peace-and-love idea. It takes balls to go into high-crime areas and mentor children. Volunteers could be robbed, shot, raped, murdered. But we have missionaries and aid workers traveling to the Middle East every day. Kayla Mueller, a young American Doctors Without Borders worker in Syria who was kidnapped and eventually killed by ISIS, said: โ€œFor as long as I live, I will not allow this suffering to be normalโ€ฆโ€ Her same heroic philosophy needs to be aimed at Americaโ€™s inner cities.

โ€œGreat idea, Malcolm. So why donโ€™t you do it?โ€

Because Iโ€™m in prison. But from this side of the razor wire, things are crystal clear. My dormitory is full of 19-year-old kids with life sentences. Unraised, uneducated, unloved. Many of them left children behind who will grow up the same way. These are young men who laugh at domestic terror attacks and applaud when police are gunned down. As cold-blooded and evil as this sounds, itโ€™s a problem that will continue to grow exponentially if not confronted at its roots. Not with force and intolerance, but with love and compassion.

In my latest novel, On the Shoulders of Giants, a story that deals largely with race, there are three sections titled โ€œThe Other America.โ€ But the truth is, there is no โ€œother America.โ€ Thereโ€™s only one America. No them, only us. Itโ€™s time to start investing in ALL of our children.

Posted
September 26, 2016
Category
addiction, interconnectedness, life philosophy, raising children
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How to make a REAL difference

There is something unsustainable going on in this country. It’s happening in every project building and trailer park across the nation. Babies are being born into poverty, if they are lucky enough to make it that far, as many are discarded with the trash.

These kids grow up like weeds, forgotten by incarcerated and addicted parents — many of whom are still kids themselves — ignored by society, bouncing around state foster care systems and juvenile detention centers, raised by the streets.

When I was smoking crack, I remember driving to my local ghetto to score some dope one morning. I was amazed by how many kids mobbed my car. Eleven and twelve-year-olds, pushing and shoving each other outside my window, holding out baggies of the rock cocaine I sought, vying to make the coveted sell. Even in my drug-addled mind, I remember wondering why these kids weren’t in school.

Now, eleven years into a 30-year prison sentence, I see those same kids moving into the neighboring bunks in my dorm; 18-year-old boys with 50- and 60-year sentences, their lives already over. I know people will say they made their own choices, but when a child grows up unraised and unloved, when he has to hustle and scrap for everything he gets, when the only environment he knows is one of crime and violence, when the heroes of his community are gangsters and criminals, when the music he’s been listening to his entire life trumpets murder, robbery, and dope-dealing as a realistic, viable life path … it’s difficult to wake up one day and decide to get a GED. Maybe in Hollywood; rarely in real life.

The newspapers say crime is down 4 percent in this country. Somebody is skewing those numbers. With the rise of physically addictive prescription drugs, and heroin rearing its ugly head, there is no way the crime rate is dropping. The problem is not going to go away. It is a festering sore on the face of society that is expanding exponentially. And there’s only one way to stop it: Love.

Naive as it may sound, if every child in this country were loved and nurtured, there would be a lot less violent crime in America 15 years from now. So let’s set aside the whales and the trees and the ozone for a minute. If we really want to make a difference, we need to save the kids. Because there is no them; only us.

[This post first appeared on malcolmivey.com 9/15/14.]

Posted
February 1, 2016
Category
character sketch, interconnectedness, kindness, life philosophy, On My Block, prison reform
Comments
0 Responses

Tapestry

My camp is 60 percent mentally ill. The spectrum ranges from violent psychopaths (dudes who rape and stab and make me grateful there’s such a thing as maximum security) to zoned-out convalescents whose lives consist of drooling and taking thorazine.

The kid in the next bunk is neither. His name is Jimmy and he’s from the north side of Jacksonville. He spends his days autographing the faces of celebrities in OK magazines and babbling these outlandish stories to himself. “This is my Uncle Leroy from the Bahamas” (George Clooney). “This is the detective that busted me with 40 bricks” (Donald Trump).

It used to drive me crazy. The mental immersion required to write a book demands silence and space to think, not a running sink of psycho-dribble 24/7. But lately I’ve been embracing it as a kind of right-brain exercise to get the creative juices flowing. When I get stuck, I’ll drop my pen, look at him and say, “My father was a swordfighter in Lebanon.”

Jimmy: “Mine too. They fought naked aliens together in the war.”
Me: “Those must be the same aliens that kidnapped me and trained me in martial arts.”
Jimmy: “How do you think you got that scar on your head?”
And around and around we’ll go until I fall back into my novel-in-progress and he to his celebrity gossip rag. “This is my ex-wife” (Caitlyn Jenner).

But today, something different happened. When I asked him if his mom was a Russian bullfighter on ice, he shook his head and looked at me with clear eyes. “My momma killed herself when I was little. I saw her do it.”

Then he turned the page and resumed his elaborate babble. It could have just been more BS but it sure didn’t feel like it. If it is true, it’s unfathomable that any kid should go through that. There’s a reason why people withdraw inward and batten down the hatches. Nobody is born bad. We are each of us a tapestry of our life experiences, influences, and impressions. We are all grown children, some of us with heartbreaking backstories.

Posted
September 15, 2014
Category
addiction, interconnectedness, kindness, life philosophy, raising children
Comments
0 Responses

How to make a REAL difference

There is something unsustainable going on in this country. It’s happening in every project building and trailer park across the nation. Babies are being born into poverty, if they are lucky enough to make it that far, as many are discarded with the trash.

These kids grow up like weeds, forgotten by incarcerated and addicted parents — many of whom are still kids themselves — ignored by society, bouncing around state foster care systems and juvenile detention centers, raised by the streets.

When I was smoking crack, I remember driving to my local ghetto to score some dope one morning. I was amazed by how many kids mobbed my car. Eleven and 12-year-olds, pushing and shoving each other outside my window, holding out baggies of the rock cocaine I sought, vying to make the coveted sell. Even in my drug-addled mind, I remember wondering why these kids weren’t in school.

Now, ten years into a 30-year prison sentence, I see those same kids moving into the neighboring bunks in my dorm; 18-year-old boys with 50- and 60-year sentences, their lives already over. I know people will say they made their own choices, but when a child grows up unraised and unloved, when he has to hustle and scrap for everything he gets, when the only environment he knows is one of crime and violence, when the heroes of his community are gangsters and criminals, when the music he’s been listening to his entire life trumpets murder, robbery, and dope-dealing as a realistic, viable life path … it’s difficult to wake up one day and decide to get a GED. Maybe in Hollywood; rarely in real life.

The newspapers say crime is down 4 percent in this country. Somebody is skewing those numbers. With the rise of physically addictive prescription drugs, and heroin rearing its ugly head, there is no way the crime rate is dropping. The problem is not going to go away. It is a festering sore on the face of society that is expanding exponentially. And there’s only one way to stop it: Love.

Naรฏve as it may sound, if every child in this country were loved and nurtured, there would be a lot less violent crime in America 15 years from now. So let’s set aside the whales and the trees and the ozone for a minute. If we really want to make a difference, we need to save the kids.

Because there is no them; only us.

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