| What is your most memorable childhood experience? | We stayed on a lake in the summer, going barefoot the whole time, picking mushrooms, catching dozens of crayfish a day with our hands, watching fireworks. We'd grill almost every night and head into town for ice cream. It helped me get that "your purpose" is to secondly find the place you're happiest, and firstly make sure everyone else can find theirs too. |
| What immediate family member do you closely identify with and why? | I identify with my older brother who is closer to me in age. He'd always jump and sprint to help anyone in need, talk back against unkind authorities, and shower the people around him with love. I think I've spent my whole life trying to be just like him. |
| What character traits do you admire in an individual? | I admire empathy. It grants you courage to help others, stamina to keep at it, and takes a fortune of intelligence to maintain. Anyone who'd "rather be smart than kind" has never been either. |
| What is the funniest thing ever to happen to you? | I was picked to do the announcements in high school. On my first day, I made things up like “today’s meeting is cancelled” and punched up every other announcement to read like authoritarian propaganda, as well as threw on the Cha Cha Slide so kids would do it in class. It was also my last day doing the announcements and I almost got suspended. |
| If time and money were not an issue, where would you travel and why? | I'd love to see every National Park. I've already got a handful under my belt. I'm always flummoxed by people spending so much to jump across the world in order to hide in secluded hotels. I get and love the idea of being rocked by new cultures, but in terms of natural beauty, the US is both massive and unexpected at every turn. |
| When and if you ever have children, what would you like to pass on to them? | I would hope that they possess militant kindness because it's unfortunately not enough to be nice when it's convenient. You have to be nice even when everyone else is enjoying incidental cruelty, when it's terrifying to lend a helping hand, and when giving truly requires giving up something. You'll find at almost every step that it sobers the crowd and that they'll genuinely appreciate you doing it. |
