Sarah Jaffe

And I was very bad at asking for help.

I'm still pretty bad at asking for help, but I'm getting better.

The last talk that I did for it in public, my interlocutor was somebody who loves me very much and who literally held my hand through the conversation.

Those moments...

Where I had to realize that, like, this is part of it, that one of one of those two people who squished me between them in the back of the car, you know, I was apologizing for being a mess and needing to sleep on her couch.

And she was just like, that's what friends are for.

And I hear that in her voice still whenever I'm sort of being difficult to myself.

It's just like, oh, right.

This is like what we build these relationships for is to be there.

And, you know, I...

I'm honored when those people call on me in those moments, too, you know, that I want to be able to show up as much as they showed up for me.

And I want to be able to pay that outward to new people who haven't had to show up for me that way yet.

And that's what makes.

living in this screwed up world worth doing.

And that's also what gives us the energy and the power not only to change it, but to believe we can change it, to believe that actually we're better than the worst things that we're told about each other.

One of the federal workers that I was talking to, Colin Smalley, he's with the Army Corps of Engineers.

And he was saying that these attacks on the federal workforce are attacks on the entire idea that we should care about each other as humans.

And the way that we have organized that care in this world is through government.

And it's a little bit more complicated than that, obviously.

But like...