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(11/15/18 10:57am)
CORNWALL — Cheryl and Marc Cesario have been managing their beef cattle farm, Meeting Place Pastures, since 2009. The couple bought their first property and expanded in 2016, both with the help of the Vermont Land Trust. Today, in addition to these two properties, the couple rents land around Middlebury. They graze 35 beef cattle for Middlebury College every year, a portion of the 90 cattle the college purchases annually.
In contrast to the rurality of Vermont, the Cesarios grew up in suburbia. Marc first developed his interest in farming at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), where he studied Environmental Science. He recalled how, at the time, “mainstream environmentalism seemed to sort of take the humans out of the ecosystem.
“It was always an ‘us versus them’ thing, which didn’t meld with my vision,” Marc said.
He wondered if “maybe it would be better if we viewed ourselves as part of the ecosystem.” Rather than seeing farms as inherently bad, Marc wanted to figure out how to make farms part of the solution.
He left UMass after his freshman year and got a job at a vegetable farm in Amherst. “When I took that job, I was a vegetarian,” Marc said. “I ended up being there for about ten years. After about four or five years, I managed everything on the farm that had to do with livestock. So, I was able to start debt-free and rent-free.”
“The debt came later,” Cheryl joked. She explained the challenges that came with starting their own farm.
“The trouble is, when you want to go buy a farm, it’s really difficult if you don’t have a lot of assets,” she said. “Anything that was somewhat decent, with a livable house and a facility that was standing, was off the bat about a half a million dollars.”
For years, she would look online for opportunities. Finally, she found the property that they currently farm. They started as a diversified operation – “meat birds, a lot of pigs, not very many cows.”
About four or five years ago, around the time when their daughter Normandy was born, they shifted their focus exclusively to cows.
“We looked into custom or contract grazing, which is pretty much summer camp for cows,” Marc explained. “We have three or four different clients, who send us cattle… and we get paid per animal per day [to graze them here]. Before, we were trying to sell meat to customers. Now, we’re selling grass to a different customer.”
Cheryl and Marc described how they simulate natural conditions for the cows. The farmers act as predators, keeping the cattle moving across the landscape with temporary fencing. This prevents the cows from overgrazing and allows them to stay in herds.
Marc described the “benefit to the animal, benefit to the land, and benefit to our wallets” that comes from their management style. “The cow is going out there, and harvesting its own forage, as opposed to us cutting that forage and using fuel and equipment and labor to bring that feed to a cow in a barn,” he said. “And then that cow is depositing its own urine and manure on the field, instead of us having to use fuel and labor to collect it from the barn and put that back out on the fields.”
However, Marc continued, “unfortunately, over the last fifty or sixty years, a lot of animals have been bred for not pasture-rearing. They’ve been bred to function on grain, or with mechanical harvesting, or with a lot of individual treatment, particularly in the dairy world. Everyone is focusing on weight gain, and that has geared breeding practices and protocols.”
“We’re trying to, in our own way, modify the gene pool for a more vigorous herd,” Cheryl said.
“We’re creating an environment for the animal to be an animal, and hopefully in twenty years, they can fend for themselves for the most part, beyond the daily moves,” Marc added.
The Cesarios see themselves as more than just beef producers. Marc believes his main job is to make sure the solar energy, nutrient, water and carbon cycles are functioning within their ecosystem. He posits that managing beef is almost the byproduct of the aforementioned work.
[pullquote speaker="MARC CESARIO" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Mainstream environmentalism seemed to sort of take the humans out of the ecosystem. It was always an ‘us versus them’ thing, which didn’t meld with my vision.[/pullquote]
They explained how they maintain a diversity of healthy grasses, and manage for deep roots, in order to sequester carbon in their soil. Cheryl also noted that perennial plants decrease runoff and increase water infiltration.
“If all the agricultural soils in the world worked on increasing organic matter in the soil by one percent, we could reduce the amount of carbon in the air to preindustrial levels. That’s not hard at all,” Marc explained.
Meeting Place Pastures has increased the total carbon levels in their soil over the past 10 years by 150 percent. “And that’s just by managing for deep roots,” Marc said.
“What we’re seeing these days is droughts and flooding, droughts and flooding. Let’s heal our soils to be able to hold onto that water so we don’t have this flooding,” he said.
An energy audit conducted by the University of Vermont found that Meeting Place Pastures was carbon neutral on the production side. They are also a net zero greenhouse gas emitter. “This is not a case of doing less bad, this is a case of doing more good,” the pair concluded.
Marc spoke to how the management of the cows, specifically with regard to the use of fossil fuels, is a significant culprit of environmental damage. The couple acknowledged that there are many beef farms doing harm, raising “so-called grass-fed beef.” “It’s challenging. How is the customer supposed to know?” Marc said.
The couple has had to deal with many people’s misconceptions about their work.
“I’ve had people come up to me at the farmers’ market and tell me they’re going to shoot me in the head, telling me that’s what I do to animals and therefore that’s what should happen to me,” Marc explained.
“It is true — I’m choosing to kill an animal. But I’m creating a healthy habitat for microbes, so if you look at it holistically, I’m creating much more life in this situation than death,” he said. “But maybe as humans, we relate more to a cow than we do to a worm or a microbe. We see more of ourselves in a cow than in a microbe.”
The couple spoke about how any food and any farm can have a positive or negative impact on the environment. Their wish is for consumers to ask themselves if their food is having a positive impact on the environment, rather than simply deciding to eat meat or not. In Marc’s eyes, this approach is too black and white.
Cheryl and Marc both addressed people’s sometimes unrealistic expectations of agriculture.
“I think there’s a customer base that’s putting too much on the farmer on a daily basis, requiring them to do it all and not being realistic about those farmers’ lives,” Marc said. “And that’s a cultural and societal problem.”
He went on to cite the high rates of suicide among agricultural workers, underling the pressure many farmers feel. While the exact numbers for rates of suicide among farmers are uncertain, according to the Center for Disease Control and Protection, death by suicide is more common in rural areas than in urban ones.
Despite the challenges the couple faces, they value their ability to provide for themselves and their family — which now includes Normandy.
“It’s pretty cool to be able to look at where we came from and what we’ve created, and to know that sunshine pays for all this stuff,” Marc said.
(10/11/18 10:00am)
Representative Ruqaiyah ‘Kiah’ Morris (D-Bennington) formally resigned her seat in the Vermont House a little over two weeks ago in light of prolonged racial harassment that pushed her story to national headlines. Elected in 2014 and reelected in 2016, Morris was only the second African-American woman to serve in the State Legislature in Vermont’s history.
On Tuesday, Sept. 25, the day of her official resignation, Morris explained her departure on Facebook. She recounted facing “continued [racial] harassment,” including “racist comments and threats on social media, vandalism at her home and at the local Democratic Party office, and unwanted intrusion on her home and property,” according to an interview she did with Seven Days.
Morris also wrote of her need to support her husband in his “long physical journey of recovery following extensive open-heart surgery.” She plans to focus on helping him recover and caring for her family, according to an interview with The Washington Post.
SGA President Nia Robinson ’19 considers Morris’ resignation significant “because it shows that black women are not immune to racism because of the positions they hold. It also shows that we haven’t progressed — as much as we boast about it.”
“How unfortunate is it that Kiah Morris has to negotiate her role with the safety of herself and her family?” Robinson said. “Instead of offering suggestions and expressing concerns about the content of the work done, the comments attack her directly as a black woman.”
[pullquote speaker="RUTH HARDEY " photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]She is an incredibly effective legislator and she was an incredibly powerful voice for people who were literally at the table in Montpelier, so it is a huge loss to our government and a huge loss to our house.[/pullquote]
Morris’ accomplishments and work are described in full on her website (kiahmorris.com). In a post on Facebook on Aug. 24, Morris outlined an extensive list of the victories and causes to which she was most proud to contribute her support and leadership. The list includes but is not limited to: “no cost contraceptive access for all Vermonters, prescription drug price transparency, support for establishment of gender neutral bathrooms and [establishment of a] medicinal cannabis dispensary in Bennington.”
“I am devastated by the fact that she had to resign,” said Ruth Hardy, Democratic candidate for the state Senate for Addison County, in an interview with The Campus. “She is an incredibly effective legislator and she was an incredibly powerful voice for people who were literally at the table in Montpelier, so it is a huge loss to our government and a huge loss to our house.”
She is on the Board of United Children’s Services, serves as a Sisters on the Planet Ambassador for Oxfam America, Leader with Rights and Democracy Vermont, and is on the advisory councils for Emerge Vermont and Black Lives Matter Vermont. She is passionate about social justice, intersectionality, and amplifying diverse voices.
Morris told The Washington Post that the racial harassment she experienced began in 2016, during her reelection campaign. She noted that it coincided with a visible rise of white supremacy in her area during the presidential campaign. “Neo-Nazi propaganda started showing up at the door of the Bennington Democratic Party office,” Morris said in the same interview. “Neo-Nazi recruitment fliers were left all over town.”
Morris had announced on Aug. 24 that she was dropping her bid for reelection, but that she was determined to finish out her term.
“The last two years have been emotionally difficult for many. Political discourse, and in particular within the sphere of social media has been divisive, inflammatory and at times, even dangerous,” she wrote on Facebook. “It is my hope that as a state, we will continue to demand greater support and protections for one another from those forces which seek to divide and destroy our communities.”
However, the severity and frequency of the harassment she and her family continued to face forced her to change her plans and resign before the end of her term.
“This is a reality, especially for candidates of color — women of color in particular,” Hardy said. She added that gubernatorial candidate Christine Hallquist, who is transgender, has also received death threats and harassment. “I think it is a really sad and horrifying comment on our society,” she said.
In an interview with Vermont Public Radio on Aug. 30, Morris described feeling underwhelmed by the response of the Bennington Police Department when she reported the incidents of harassment. Bennington Police Chief Paul Doucette said in a release issue on Sept. 1 that Morris and her husband initiated conversations with police in September 2016 and filed a complaint the following month. Despite investigations into the complaint, no criminal charges were brought forward and no further complaints were filed until July of this year. In the same statement, Doucette claimed that all of Morris and her husbands’ complaints had been “investigated appropriately and efficiently.”
He described “a series of what seemed to be miscommunications between the couple and [the] police,” according to VTDigger.
Morris was the only African-American woman in the Vermont Legislature, and one of only a handful of non-white legislators.
“We need to be clear and confront the fact that in 2018 a black woman was led to resign in response to racial harassment. Some may react in disbelief, but this is a reality many black officials have to face,” Robinson said.
Robinson addressed the importance of representation in government, and spoke of her own experiences being part of a minority in a state that is 94.5% white, according to the United States Census Bureau.
“When I came to Vermont for school three years ago, the ‘nice’ people and community couldn’t mask the Confederate flags and uncomfortable stares,” Robinson recounted. “Representation is so important because it shows what is available. You get to see people
who have fought against odds and created a space for themselves. Representation is where we find the role models. I hope we get to a point where representation is not something we have to look for. We should get beyond the ‘firsts,’” she declared.
On Aug. 27, a few days after Morris’ resignation, Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan announced that he had launched an investigation into the threats Morris allegedly faced. “The Attorney General’s Office will work with the Vermont State Police and appropriate computer forensic experts to ensure a thorough and complete investigation of this matter,” claimed the statement posted by his office.
In late August, after Morris ended her bid for a third term in the house, Democratic Party committee members chose Jim Carroll to replace Morris on the November 6 ballot. As a tribute to Morris, Bennington Democrats voted to keep her seat open until the beginning of the next legislative session, according to VTDigger.
“In Kiah’s case, especially because Vermont is such an overwhelmingly white place, to be an African-American woman who serves her community so effectively, to be the victim of such horrible harassment is devastating,” Hardy said. “We all, especially white people like me, need to step up and say, ‘This is not okay, we need to do something about that.’”
Additional reporting by Bochu Ding.
(10/11/18 9:58am)
Nadia Murad’s talk at Middlebury was canceled last week after the Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist won the Nobel Peace Prize. Murad was honored for her activism against human trafficking and her efforts to end use of rape as a weapon of war. President Laurie L. Patton announced the cancellation in an all-school email, writing, “This is by far the best cancelation notice I have ever had to write.”
[pullquote speaker="President Laurie L. Patton" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]This is by far the best cancelation notice I have ever had to write.[/pullquote]
Murad was captured at the age of 21 by Islamic State (IS) militants in her village of Kocho in 2014. The militants executed much of her family and most of the men and older women who would not convert to Islam. While they were buried them in mass graves, many of the young women, including Murad, were kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery.
She became a part of the Islamic State’s (IS) sex slave trade among many other Yazidi women. While the militant who had taken Murad tried to force her to convert to Islam, she refused. He also tried to force her hand in marriage. During this time she was raped and tortured daily.
After three months, she escaped after being sold to a jihadist in Mosul. She fled to Kurdistan by posing as the wife of a Sunni man. Despite wanting to return home, she could not because the Islamic State still controlled her village. She instead emigrated to Germany, where she lives today.
Murad is now a human rights activist. She shares her intensely painful and personal story to raise awareness for her cause.
Murad spoke at the United Nations Security Council in 2017 and successfully convinced them to approve an investigation into the war crimes committed by IS against the Yazidi people.
Earlier this year, Murad published a memoir titled “The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State.”
Murad also founded the nonprofit Nadia’s Initiative. Through the organization, Murad lobbies states and institutions to recognize the Yazidi genocide and works to establish programming in the Sinjar region of Iraq, the ancient homeland of the Yazidi minority.
The Nobel Peace Prize winners were announced early Friday morning. Murad shares the prize with Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist who has treated tens of thousands of victims of sexual violence.
History Professor Febe Armanios, who was scheduled to introduce Murad, was pleased by the news of her Nobel recognition.
[pullquote speaker="History Professor Febe Armanios" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]It is quite heartening to see that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has recognized her advocacy and tireless efforts.[/pullquote]
“Nadia’s story is full of pain but also of hope that such horrors would never be repeated,” Armanios said. “Time and again, over the last few years, she’s taken to the microphone to share her experiences on the global stage and has called on the international community to bring to justice those who’ve perpetrated violence against women and minorities. It is quite heartening to see that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has recognized her advocacy and tireless efforts.”
Originally scheduled to occur later that evening, the talk was part of the Critical Conversations series and was titled “Hope Has an Expiration Date: Exploring the Plight of Victims of Ethnic and Religious Violence in the Middle East.”
(09/27/18 9:58am)
BURLINGTON – From noon to 8 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 23, Burlington’s Old North End was consumed by the Let Equality Bloom Activism Festival. Organized by a team of Women’s March Vermont volunteers, the well-attended festival included everything from activism trainings and workshops to live music and a drag performance.
The festival’s organizers aimed to introduce young people to social justice movements in Vermont and across the country and spark excitement for voting.
Women’s March Vermont leader and festival organizer Grace Meyer explained that the event planners wanted the festival to “draw different folks who might not be as interested in a march or rally,” especially young people.
Young volunteers were also involved in the planning of the event. Mackenzie Murdoch, a 19-year-old Women’s March Youth Organizer, first began working with Women’s March Vermont and for March for Our Lives last year and has been helping plan this festival for the past six months. She is one of the youngest organizers on the team.
“[It’s] so cool seeing so many people of different ages excited about getting young people involved [in activism],” Murdoch said.
Speakers included Democratic Vermont gubernatorial nominee Christine Hallquist and outgoing Bennington Representative Kiah Morris. Murdoch expressed her excitement over Morris’ speech in particular.
“She’s been getting a lot of hate and her family has been targeted a lot by racist groups and people,” Murdoch said. “Being able to see all the things she’s done despite the hate and negativity she’s receiving is so inspiring. I’m looking forward to hearing her speak about that.”
Meyer also discussed the importance of Morris’ speech at the event. “Racism is something we’re very focused on right now,” Meyer said. “It is extremely evident in the case of Kiah Morris, who is unable to continue serving as a Vermont state representative for fear of safety because of threats her family has been receiving.”
The festival also attempted to address issues such as transphobia, voter suppression and classism with a wide array of workshops offered throughout the afternoon. Participants were invited to visit a selection of related organizations from the area, which set up tables around the workshops.
The organizers hoped to encourage festival-goers to become involved with different organizations. “People can get a real feel for the organizations and maybe even find something they’re passionate about,” Meyer said.
The Let Equality Bloom Festival brought together art, food and music with activism, voter registration and discussion of relevant issues. It also aimed to celebrate all that has been accomplished by activists, and encourage future activists to get involved. Meyer hopes that participants left feeling inspired to get involved and empowered to vote.
“The last election could’ve been incredibly different, had people actually voted,” Meyer said. “Empowering people to get out there and vote is so important to our state and national governments.”
Murdoch shared a similar hope for festival attendees. She hoped that the festival would help diminish political apathy.
“[Election participation] has a daily impact whether people are aware of it or not. Especially for marginalized groups of people, voting is so important,” Murdoch said. “We’ve seen so much hate and discrimination in the country… not voting is leading us to where we are now.”
(09/13/18 9:58am)
[gallery ids="39645,39647,39646,39644,39643,39648"]
This summer, one of our writers took a road trip around parts of New England before returning to campus. She took a journal and a camera with her.
Our adventure began with a text message sent in early April, suggesting an end-of-summer, sophomore year send-off trip. We had one week to travel, a limited budget and no ideas for a location. So we picked the obvious choice: road trip. Four months later, we found ourselves sitting on top of a mountain in Maine, snuggled up in our sleeping bags, watching the sunrise and sipping hot, bitter tea out of a thermos.
After spending the summer on campus, getting to know Vermont, I was ready to discover more of the Northeast. So, my friend Nancy and I made up a half-baked plan to drive from Middlebury across to Maine and back through New Hampshire. We bought a road map, chose a couple destinations along our route, and began counting down the days until our “junior,” as we branded it, road trip.
On the morning of August 24, we set off for Maine. Our first stop was Killington, Vermont, to pick up our friend Gabe. Forty minutes later, we passed over a deep gorge (Vermont’s deepest, in fact), and pulled over to explore. Standing on the bridge, we dangled our arms over the guard rail and stared down into the 13,000-year-old canyon.
We hit the road again. We arrived in downtown Portland in the late afternoon. After hours spent on interstate highways, we found ourselves yearning for the ocean. We wandered past red brick storefronts and seafood restaurants advertising a seemingly endless array of lobster dishes. We headed down a pathway bordering the water, and slipped under a wooden fence onto a rocky stretch of beach, the perfect place for basking in the warm evening sun.
We breathed a collective sigh of relief. For all of us, having grown up in New Jersey, the crashing waves and salty sea breeze smelled and sounded like home. Portland was a welcome respite before the anticipated grunginess of the coming days.
August 25: We stuffed ourselves and our already disorganized gear back into the car, and set the GPS to Acadia National Park. We took the scenic coastal route, stopping to purchase blueberries from a bearded old man on the side of the road and to fuel up on coffee at a combination diner and shoe store.
It took us twice as long as the GPS had predicted to get to Acadia. The park was overrun with families fighting for parking spots and arguing loudly over who should stand where for vacation photos in front of picturesque mountains and lakes.
We drove the winding road around the island to the infamous Thunder Hole, where we were told the waves smashing against the rocky cavern would make a sound just like thunder. They did not, but we found a nearby cliff with a lovely view of the moon and the sea, where we cooked dinner over our camp stove. I was only slightly disappointed by the thunderless evening.
August 26: At 4 a.m., we were up and en route to the summit of Cadillac Mountain. The car was running on empty. So were we. But we made it to the top.
We hiked through the dark woods, wrapped in our sleeping bags, until we found a secluded spot to watch the sunrise. We passed around a mug of thick mate, watching the sky turn pale pink and purple over the water.
Post-sunrise viewing, we drove one and a half hours to Orono, to meet up with another friend. After a (very) brief discussion, Nancy and I decided to break our vegetarianism for some Maine lobster. We decided it was an essential part of the quintessential Northeast road trip. We ordered at a roadside restaurant that serves an all-you-can-eat fish fry three times a week. When in Maine, we agree.
Stomachs full, we determined it was time for a hike. Our friend directed us to her favorite trail in Orono, where we trekked to the summit in the 90-degree heat. We reminisced about previous, similarly poorly planned camping trips as we took in the incredible views.
Next stop, New Hampshire. We left Maine in the late afternoon, driving back inland towards the White Mountain National Forest.
August 27: The White Mountains offered a change of pace with campgrounds and hiking trails much emptier than those in Acadia.
We started the day off with another hike, another spectacular view. We stopped at a stream, where we attempted to scrub off some of the grime that accumulated over the past few days without showers, sleeping in the back seat of my car.
We packed up the car a final time, and all piled in. Despite griminess and sleep deprivation, I left the White Mountains that afternoon feeling recharged and balanced — two feelings I was sorely in need of by the end of freshman year.
As we headed back to Vermont, I had a strong sense of returning home. I loved the rocky coasts of Maine and impressive mountains and forests of New Hampshire, but something about the familiar rolling green hills and sprawling pastures of Vermont resonated with me upon my return, in a way that I had not experienced before.
(11/01/17 10:42pm)
Students and faculty gathered in the Robert A. Jones Conference Room on Thursday, Oct. 26, for a lecture titled “Race Matters in France,” given by historian Pap Ndiaye. Ndiaye works at Sciences-Po Paris, and is currently a visiting professor at Northwestern University as well as a professor at Middlebury’s French Summer School.
Event organizer and Associate Professor of French William Poulin-Deltour said he first met Ndiaye at the summer school.
“I think it’s important to look at other national contexts and transnational contexts and see how race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality are constructed,” said Poulin-Deltour, explaining his reasoning behind inviting Ndiaye to speak. The idea of American exceptionalism is one of the major topics Ndiaye discussed in his lecture.
“In doing this, we can move beyond this notion of American exceptionalism – that America is at the forefront of everything,” he said.
Ndiaye began his lecture with side-by-side pictures of a Black Lives Matter protest in the United States and one in France. He spoke about the fact that the movement is more marginal in France, as are other civil rights movements.
Ndiaye explains that black people in France need to create a new, uniting narrative and build a stronger community in order to more effectively organize and gain power.
“I was particularly interested in Ndiaye’s discussion of how to create a new narrative that would include French blacks, since, as of now, the narrative is missing,” said Erika Saunders ’18, who attended the conferenceSaunders said. “There is also a disconnect between French national history and French colonial history, which allows for the voices of those who come from French colonies to be swept under the rug.”
Ndiaye was careful in reminding attendees that, despite a history of black victories in the United States, racism is, of course, still an equally pressing issue here. Poulin-Deltour also spoke to this topic.
“I think, in doing a comparative approach with anything American, you have to be careful because you run the risk of, in this case, seeing France as being behind the United States,” Poulin-Deltour said. “We should look at France in a comparative lens, but not pat ourselves on the back and say things are great here, because I don’t think things are great here.”
Another important problem Ndiaye discussed, which can also be seen in the United States, is the delegitimizing of experiences of discrimination in France. He describes how there is a lack of quantitative data about black experiences in France because research on the subject is seen as threatening to the nation.
Additionally, the French government has declared itself as being color blind to different skin tones.
“In theory [the French government is] free of bias and discrimination,” said Sadie Housberg 21, an attendee of the conference.. But, in doing this, the government ignores the struggles of people facing discrimination based on their race.
“As [Ndiaye] said, race is imagined. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have real social and concrete effects on people who are racialized,” Poulin-Deltour said. “But if we can see that it’s imagined and it’s imagined differently elsewhere, I think that helps to de-essentialize the notion of racism. I think the minute that we know that things can be different, we know that we can change things.”
Ndiaye reminded attendees that changes need to happen in both the United States and France. Issues of racism and discrimination in the two countries share many similarities and are deeply interconnected.
“The issues in France discussed by Ndiaye are especially important to consider because they demonstrate the need for a worldwide discussion regarding race,” Saunders said. “Conferences such as Ndiaye’s are essential in opening such a conversation, and hopefully, Middlebury will continue to invite speakers from other countries to discuss similar issues.”
“Things on campus aren’t great right now, in terms of race… I planned [this conference] well before, for example, the Charles Murray incident, but it just so happens that [Ndiaye] came at a good moment,” Poulin-Deltour said. “We’re in the middle of things, and we can look at what’s going on and what’s really at stake… to take a break and look beyond ourselves and try to imagine beyond ourselves, I think is important.”