As With Much Of The World's Problems,

Fire And Water Are Archetypes, The Split Sides Of Consciousness; One Aware, The Other, Not. The Two Parts Of Us That Desire Synthesis, Yet Resist It: The Self And The Shadow. But They Are Also The Element Of Chance, Of The Random Roll Of Dice.

If You Want To Know About Africa, Read Our Literature - And Not Just 'things Fall Apart,' Because That Would Be Like Saying, 'i've Read 'gone With The Wind' And So I Know Everything About America.'

The Truth Is, Everything We Know About America, Everything Americans Come To Know About Being American, Isn't From The News. I Live There. We Don't Go Home At The End Of The Day And Think, "well, I Really Know Who I Am Now Because The Wall Street Journal Says That The Stock Exchange Closed At This Many Points." What We Know About How To Be Who We Are Comes From Stories. It Comes From The Novels, The Movies, The Fashion Magazines. It Comes From Popular Culture.

The Truth Is That History, With Its Imposing Capital H, Is Simply The Amalgamation Of Many Quotidian Lives Lived In Very Ordinary Ways. History Is Always Personal. If You Read Holocaust Survivor Or American Slavery Survivor Narratives, You Realize All Too Well That These Great Historical Moments Were Personal To Someone At Some Time.

What I've Come To Learn Is That The World Is Never Saved In Grand Messianic Gestures, But In The Simple Accumulation Of Gentle, Soft, Almost Invisible Acts Of Compassion.