Were I to begin with the usual format of "she was born on" and so forth, I daresay folk would rapidly give way to yawns and turn to other pursuits.

The short form is that I have seldom been blessed with vibrant health, so I often took refuge from the pain by way of my imagination. Yes, I'm one of those scary ones who sees how things could be, and asks "why not?"

How often have you considered... If you knew you were immortal, and that you would remember all you ever saw or said or did, how would you live? Would you live any differently from the way you live now?

So many people - of all races - choose to tear down, instead of build up. They choose to destroy, instead of create; to criticize, instead of learn or instruct; to hate and fear, instead of learning to understand; to pursue ugliness instead of beauty; to pursue cruelty instead of kindness, and to be rude instead of courteous. I could neither understand nor condone that approach to life, so I took a different path.

Having nearly died as a child taught me to think about how I may be remembered whenever I do die. I want to leave something beautiful behind, something that may help inspire others. I do not know if I have achieved this goal yet - but I shall continue pursuing it.

None of us needs to be a lemming, following "the crowd" into a pit of self-destructive activities. Any of us can be the one who says, "Hey, let's try something else..." and points toward a mountain to climb instead. Whether the mountain's peak is ever successfully reached or not, it remains a better goal than the alternative!

No matter what I do or say, it will always have some effect on another human being. An effect as real as if it were a brick or a stone. So I try to step back and ponder, before I speak or type: would this word-brick be building a wall, or a bridge, or merely wreaking havoc?

Wherever possible, I try to build bridges. I find that more beneficial to both myself and others than the alternatives. Especially if someone else may remember it longer than I do!

My dream is that one day humanity will wake up and realize that we are something special on this world. We have the power to think, and choose for ourselves. We need not give way to every destructive impulse that passes through us; we can choose to be better than that, to cooperate instead of pursuing conflict, and, together, we can become greater than the sum of our parts.

We can choose to focus on what we have in common, instead of despising our differences. We can see first "another human being" and only secondly be aware of how that human is different from ourselves.

I do not expect so dramatic a change as true brotherhood to come into practice during my own lifetime; I've seen too much of "man's inhumanity to man" to think such a change could happen that quickly. Yet I continue to dream, and hope that this dream may infect other people... then, perhaps, one day it could become a reality.