"Are there any answers to this incredible human dilemma? Can we get into some kind of larger, greater conversation where we're just telling each other, 'Look, this is what it feels like to be me going through this, and you tell me what it feels like to be you.' And we'll try to do that with a certain kind of basic decency and sanity.  That seems to me the beginning of freedom--something very much on people's minds here, everywhere really" (150-151).

I like the idea of communication and empathy being the keys to freedom (happiness). Very thought provoking.

Empathizing with prisoners turns them from faceless criminals into actual, relatable people.

"Yet left to themselves, fear, anger, and guilt are unwholesome states of mind....They pull us into a cycle of reactivity and feed on themselves. We begin to lose sight of the conditions that might have provoked them in the first place. In addition, they tend to be addictive and toxic" (159).

I have a lot of experience with this--anger is absolutely distracting and blinding.

You have to try to stay away from them.