0:00:00.911,0:00:03.019
So, we all have bad seasons in life.

0:00:03.754,0:00:05.674
And I had one in 2013.

0:00:06.373,0:00:07.719
My marriage had just ended,

0:00:07.743,0:00:10.395
and I was humiliated[br]by that failed commitment.

0:00:10.419,0:00:13.221
My kids had left home for college[br]or were leaving.

0:00:14.045,0:00:16.368
I grew up mostly[br]in the conservative movement,

0:00:16.392,0:00:17.992
but conservatism had changed,

0:00:18.016,0:00:20.008
so I lost a lot of those friends, too.

0:00:20.441,0:00:23.430
And so what I did is,[br]I lived alone in an apartment,

0:00:23.454,0:00:24.654
and I just worked.

0:00:25.417,0:00:28.830
If you opened the kitchen drawers[br]where there should have been utensils,

0:00:28.854,0:00:30.377
there were Post-it notes.

0:00:30.916,0:00:34.131
If you opened the other drawers[br]where there should have been plates,

0:00:34.155,0:00:35.305
I had envelopes.

0:00:35.885,0:00:39.282
I had work friends, weekday friends,[br]but I didn't have weekend friends.

0:00:39.942,0:00:43.542
And so my weekends[br]were these long, howling silences.

0:00:44.268,0:00:45.640
And I was lonely.

0:00:46.395,0:00:49.968
And loneliness, unexpectedly,[br]came to me in the form of --

0:00:50.399,0:00:53.248
it felt like fear,[br]a burning in my stomach.

0:00:53.272,0:00:55.953
And it felt a little like drunkenness,

0:00:55.977,0:01:00.907
just making bad decisions,[br]just fluidity, lack of solidity.

0:01:01.911,0:01:05.177
And the painful part of that moment[br]was the awareness

0:01:05.201,0:01:08.604
that the emptiness in my apartment[br]was just reflective of the emptiness

0:01:08.628,0:01:10.227
in myself,

0:01:10.251,0:01:13.978
and that I had fallen for some of the lies[br]that our culture tells us.

0:01:15.196,0:01:18.605
The first lie is that[br]career success is fulfilling.

0:01:18.629,0:01:20.466
I've had a fair bit of career success,

0:01:20.490,0:01:23.328
and I've found that it helps me avoid[br]the shame I would feel

0:01:23.352,0:01:25.026
if I felt myself a failure,

0:01:25.050,0:01:27.581
but it hasn't given me any positive good.

0:01:28.201,0:01:31.797
The second lie is I can make myself happy,

0:01:32.484,0:01:34.564
that if I just win one more victory,

0:01:34.588,0:01:38.079
lose 15 pounds, do a little more yoga,

0:01:38.103,0:01:39.253
I'll get happy.

0:01:39.743,0:01:42.061
And that's the lie of self-sufficiency.

0:01:42.419,0:01:45.101
But as anybody[br]on their deathbed will tell you,

0:01:45.125,0:01:48.389
the things that make people happy[br]is the deep relationships of life,

0:01:48.413,0:01:50.480
the losing of self-sufficiency.

0:01:51.804,0:01:54.471
The third lie is the lie[br]of the meritocracy.

0:01:55.591,0:01:58.790
The message of the meritocracy[br]is you are what you accomplish.

0:01:59.133,0:02:01.600
The myth of the meritocracy[br]is you can earn dignity

0:02:01.624,0:02:04.234
by attaching yourself[br]to prestigious brands.

0:02:04.258,0:02:07.063
The emotion of the meritocracy[br]is conditional love,

0:02:07.087,0:02:08.942
you can "earn" your way to love.

0:02:08.966,0:02:12.387
The anthropology of the meritocracy[br]is you're not a soul to be purified,

0:02:12.411,0:02:14.879
you're a set of skills to be maximized.

0:02:14.903,0:02:16.752
And the evil of the meritocracy

0:02:16.776,0:02:19.434
is that people who've achieved[br]a little more than others

0:02:19.458,0:02:21.744
are actually worth[br]a little more than others.

0:02:22.141,0:02:24.004
And so the wages of sin are sin.

0:02:24.815,0:02:26.699
And my sins were the sins of omission--

0:02:26.723,0:02:29.191
not reaching out,[br]failing to show up for my friends,

0:02:29.215,0:02:30.730
evasion, avoiding conflict.

0:02:31.560,0:02:34.688
And the weird thing was[br]that as I was falling into the valley --

0:02:34.712,0:02:36.416
it was a valley of disconnection --

0:02:36.440,0:02:38.474
a lot of other people[br]were doing that, too.

0:02:39.014,0:02:41.023
And that's sort of[br]the secret to my career;

0:02:41.047,0:02:42.820
a lot of the things that happen to me

0:02:42.844,0:02:45.002
are always happening[br]to a lot of other people.

0:02:45.026,0:02:48.220
I'm a very average person[br]with above average communication skills.

0:02:48.244,0:02:49.347
(Laughter)

0:02:49.371,0:02:50.837
And so I was detached.

0:02:51.252,0:02:54.514
And at the same time,[br]a lot of other people were detached

0:02:54.538,0:02:57.053
and isolated and fragmented[br]from each other.

0:02:57.077,0:03:00.157
Thirty-five percent of Americans[br]over 45 are chronically lonely.

0:03:00.181,0:03:03.522
Only eight percent of Americans[br]report having meaningful conversation

0:03:03.546,0:03:04.696
with their neighbors.

0:03:04.720,0:03:07.545
Only 32 percent of Americans[br]say they trust their neighbors,

0:03:07.569,0:03:09.823
and only 18 percent of millennials.

0:03:09.847,0:03:12.288
The fastest-growing[br]political party is unaffiliated.

0:03:12.312,0:03:14.899
The fastest-growing religious[br]movement is unaffiliated.

0:03:14.923,0:03:17.899
Depression rates are rising,[br]mental health problems are rising.

0:03:17.923,0:03:21.164
The suicide rate has risen[br]30 percent since 1999.

0:03:21.188,0:03:23.364
For teen suicides[br]over the last several years,

0:03:23.388,0:03:26.047
the suicide rate has risen by 70 percent.

0:03:27.249,0:03:29.924
Forty-five thousand Americans[br]kill themselves every year;

0:03:29.948,0:03:32.178
72,000 die from opioid addictions;

0:03:32.202,0:03:35.551
life expectancy is falling, not rising.

0:03:36.985,0:03:39.572
So what I mean to tell you,[br]I flew out here to say

0:03:39.596,0:03:42.524
that we have an economic crisis,[br]we have environmental crisis,

0:03:42.548,0:03:43.913
we have a political crisis.

0:03:43.937,0:03:46.016
We also have a social[br]and relational crisis;

0:03:46.040,0:03:47.379
we're in the valley.

0:03:47.403,0:03:49.006
We're fragmented from each other,

0:03:49.030,0:03:51.622
we've got cascades of lies[br]coming out of Washington ...

0:03:51.646,0:03:52.979
We're in the valley.

0:03:53.466,0:03:55.443
And so I've spent the last five years --

0:03:55.467,0:03:56.981
how do you get out of a valley?

0:03:57.356,0:04:00.469
The Greeks used to say,[br]"You suffer your way to wisdom."

0:04:01.006,0:04:04.666
And from that dark period where I started,[br]I've had a few realizations.

0:04:05.228,0:04:08.149
The first is, freedom sucks.

0:04:08.998,0:04:11.672
Economic freedom is OK,[br]political freedom is great,

0:04:11.696,0:04:13.497
social freedom sucks.

0:04:14.036,0:04:16.363
The unrooted man is the adrift man.

0:04:16.387,0:04:20.370
The unrooted man is the unremembered man,[br]because he's uncommitted to things.

0:04:20.776,0:04:24.310
Freedom is not an ocean[br]you want to swim in,

0:04:24.334,0:04:26.064
it's a river you want to get across,

0:04:26.088,0:04:28.754
so you can commit and plant yourself[br]on the other side.

0:04:29.270,0:04:30.929
The second thing I learned

0:04:30.953,0:04:33.549
is that when you have[br]one of those bad moments in life,

0:04:33.573,0:04:34.868
you can either be broken,

0:04:34.892,0:04:36.431
or you can be broken open.

0:04:36.905,0:04:38.731
And we all know people who are broken.

0:04:38.755,0:04:41.271
They've endured some pain[br]or grief, they get smaller,

0:04:41.295,0:04:43.675
they get angrier, resentful,[br]they lash out.

0:04:43.699,0:04:44.854
As the saying is,

0:04:44.878,0:04:47.576
"Pain that is not transformed[br]gets transmitted."

0:04:47.927,0:04:49.756
But other people are broken open.

0:04:51.125,0:04:54.226
Suffering's great power[br]is that it's an interruption of life.

0:04:54.250,0:04:57.019
It reminds you you're not the person[br]you thought you were.

0:04:57.043,0:04:58.580
The theologian Paul Tillich said

0:04:58.604,0:05:02.021
what suffering does is it carves through[br]what you thought was the floor

0:05:02.045,0:05:03.428
of the basement of your soul,

0:05:03.452,0:05:05.962
and it carves through that,[br]revealing a cavity below,

0:05:05.986,0:05:08.478
and it carves through that,[br]revealing a cavity below.

0:05:08.502,0:05:11.511
You realize there are depths of yourself[br]you never anticipated,

0:05:11.535,0:05:14.486
and only spiritual and relational food[br]will fill those depths.

0:05:16.173,0:05:19.141
And when you get down there,[br]you get out of the head of the ego

0:05:19.165,0:05:20.847
and you get into the heart,

0:05:20.871,0:05:22.633
the desiring heart.

0:05:22.657,0:05:26.288
The idea that what we really yearn for[br]is longing and love for another,

0:05:26.312,0:05:29.358
the kind of thing that Louis de Bernières[br]described in his book,

0:05:29.382,0:05:31.280
"Captain Corelli's Mandolin."

0:05:31.304,0:05:33.283
He had an old guy talking to his daughter

0:05:33.307,0:05:35.325
about his relationship with his late wife,

0:05:35.349,0:05:36.736
and the old guy says,

0:05:36.760,0:05:40.458
"Love itself is whatever is leftover[br]when being in love is burned away.

0:05:40.482,0:05:43.339
And this is both an art[br]and a fortunate accident.

0:05:43.704,0:05:45.387
Your mother and I had it.

0:05:45.411,0:05:47.950
We had roots that grew[br]towards each other underground,

0:05:47.974,0:05:50.903
and when all the pretty blossoms[br]had fallen from our branches,

0:05:50.927,0:05:53.379
we discovered that we are[br]one tree and not two."

0:05:53.696,0:05:55.569
That's what the heart yearns for.

0:05:55.593,0:05:58.354
The second thing[br]you discover is your soul.

0:05:58.932,0:06:01.810
Now, I don't ask you to believe in God[br]or not believe in God,

0:06:01.834,0:06:04.421
but I do ask you to believe[br]that there's a piece of you

0:06:04.445,0:06:06.421
that has no shape, size, color or weight,

0:06:06.445,0:06:09.371
but that gives you[br]infinite dignity and value.

0:06:09.395,0:06:11.752
Rich and successful people[br]don't have more of this

0:06:11.776,0:06:13.141
than less successful people.

0:06:13.974,0:06:17.156
Slavery is wrong because[br]it's an obliteration of another soul.

0:06:17.180,0:06:20.014
Rape is not just an attack[br]on a bunch of physical molecules,

0:06:20.038,0:06:22.966
it's an attempt to insult[br]another person's soul.

0:06:22.990,0:06:26.036
And what the soul does[br]is it yearns for righteousness.

0:06:26.060,0:06:29.639
The heart yearns for fusion with another,[br]the soul yearns for righteousness.

0:06:29.663,0:06:32.948
And that led to my third realization,[br]which I borrowed from Einstein:

0:06:33.655,0:06:36.141
"The problem you have[br]is not going to be solved

0:06:36.165,0:06:38.879
at the level of consciousness[br]on which you created it.

0:06:38.903,0:06:42.776
You have to expand[br]to a different level of consciousness."

0:06:42.800,0:06:44.014
So what do you do?

0:06:44.038,0:06:47.148
Well, the first thing you do[br]is you throw yourself on your friends

0:06:47.172,0:06:50.133
and you have deeper conversations[br]that you ever had before.

0:06:50.157,0:06:51.514
But the second thing you do,

0:06:51.538,0:06:53.672
you have to go out alone[br]into the wilderness.

0:06:53.696,0:06:56.768
You go out into that place[br]where there's nobody there to perform,

0:06:56.792,0:06:59.172
and the ego has nothing to do,[br]and it crumbles,

0:06:59.196,0:07:01.355
and only then are you capable[br]of being loved.

0:07:01.712,0:07:05.049
I have a friend who said[br]that when her daughter was born,

0:07:05.073,0:07:08.676
she realized that she loved her[br]more than evolution required.

0:07:09.041,0:07:10.184
(Laughter)

0:07:10.208,0:07:11.613
And I've always loved that.

0:07:11.637,0:07:12.779
(Applause)

0:07:12.803,0:07:15.760
Because it talks about the peace[br]that's at the deep of ourself,

0:07:15.784,0:07:18.489
our inexplicable care for one another.

0:07:18.513,0:07:21.457
And when you touch that spot,[br]you're ready to be rescued.

0:07:21.815,0:07:24.131
The hard thing about[br]when you're in the valley

0:07:25.300,0:07:26.648
is that you can't climb out;

0:07:26.672,0:07:28.829
somebody has to reach in and pull you out.

0:07:29.331,0:07:30.486
It happened to me.

0:07:30.510,0:07:34.037
I got, luckily, invited over to a house[br]by a couple named Kathy and David,

0:07:34.061,0:07:35.466
and they were --

0:07:36.196,0:07:38.871
They had a kid in the DC[br]public school, his name's Santi.

0:07:38.895,0:07:40.997
Santi had a friend[br]who needed a place to stay

0:07:41.021,0:07:42.887
because his mom had some health issues.

0:07:42.911,0:07:45.593
And then that kid had a friend[br]and that kid had a friend.

0:07:45.617,0:07:47.625
When I went to their house six years ago,

0:07:47.649,0:07:50.546
I walk in the door, there's like[br]25 around the kitchen table,

0:07:50.570,0:07:52.919
a whole bunch sleeping[br]downstairs in the basement.

0:07:52.943,0:07:55.006
I reach out to introduce myself to a kid,

0:07:55.030,0:07:57.634
and he says, "We don't really[br]shake hands here.

0:07:58.331,0:07:59.779
We just hug here."

0:08:00.323,0:08:03.299
And I'm not the huggiest guy[br]on the face of the earth,

0:08:03.323,0:08:06.902
but I've been going back to that home[br]every Thursday night when I'm in town,

0:08:06.926,0:08:08.470
and just hugging all those kids.

0:08:08.494,0:08:10.379
They demand intimacy.

0:08:10.403,0:08:14.013
They demand that you behave in a way[br]where you're showing all the way up.

0:08:14.442,0:08:16.236
And they teach you a new way to live,

0:08:16.260,0:08:18.561
which is the cure[br]for all the ills of our culture

0:08:18.585,0:08:21.531
which is a way of direct --[br]really putting relationship first,

0:08:21.555,0:08:24.725
not just as a word, but as a reality.

0:08:25.557,0:08:29.628
And the beautiful thing is,[br]these communities are everywhere.

0:08:29.652,0:08:33.299
I started something at the Aspen Institute[br]called "Weave: The Social Fabric."

0:08:33.323,0:08:34.479
This is our logo here.

0:08:34.503,0:08:38.236
And we plop into a place and we find[br]weavers anywhere, everywhere.

0:08:38.761,0:08:41.278
We find people like Asiaha Butler,[br]who grew up in --

0:08:42.056,0:08:44.873
who lived in Chicago, in Englewood,[br]in a tough neighborhood.

0:08:44.897,0:08:47.850
And she was about to move[br]because it was so dangerous,

0:08:48.173,0:08:51.041
and she looked across the street[br]and she saw two little girls

0:08:51.065,0:08:53.141
playing in an empty lot[br]with broken bottles,

0:08:53.165,0:08:56.347
and she turned to her husband[br]and she said, "We're not leaving.

0:08:56.371,0:08:59.347
We're not going to be just another family[br]that abandon that."

0:08:59.371,0:09:02.579
And she Googled "volunteer in Englewood,"[br]and now she runs R.A.G.E.,

0:09:02.603,0:09:04.400
the big community organization there.

0:09:04.424,0:09:07.403
Some of these people[br]have had tough valleys.

0:09:07.427,0:09:11.132
I met a woman named Sarah in Ohio[br]who came home from an antiquing trip

0:09:11.156,0:09:14.918
and found that her husband[br]had killed himself and their two kids.

0:09:15.815,0:09:19.195
She now runs a free pharmacy,[br]she volunteers in the community,

0:09:19.219,0:09:22.211
she helps women cope[br]with violence, she teaches.

0:09:22.235,0:09:25.299
She told me, "I grew from this[br]experience because I was angry.

0:09:25.323,0:09:28.093
I was going to fight back against[br]what he tried to do to me

0:09:28.117,0:09:29.863
by making a difference in the world.

0:09:29.887,0:09:31.942
See, he didn't kill me.

0:09:31.966,0:09:33.151
My response to him is,

0:09:33.175,0:09:37.371
'Whatever you meant to do to me,[br]screw you, you're not going to do it.'"

0:09:38.029,0:09:41.402
These weavers are not living[br]an individualistic life,

0:09:41.426,0:09:44.799
they're living a relationist life,[br]they have a different set of values.

0:09:44.823,0:09:46.243
They have moral motivations.

0:09:46.267,0:09:49.395
They have vocational certitude,[br]they have planted themselves down.

0:09:49.419,0:09:51.006
I met a guy in Youngstown, Ohio,

0:09:51.030,0:09:53.061
who just held up a sign[br]in the town square,

0:09:53.085,0:09:54.236
"Defend Youngstown."

0:09:54.260,0:09:56.133
They have radical mutuality,

0:09:56.157,0:09:58.690
and they are geniuses at relationship.

0:09:59.180,0:10:00.855
There's a woman named Mary Gordon

0:10:00.879,0:10:03.002
who runs something[br]called Roots of Empathy.

0:10:03.026,0:10:06.291
And what they do is they take[br]a bunch of kids, an eighth grade class,

0:10:06.315,0:10:08.054
they put a mom and an infant,

0:10:08.078,0:10:11.102
and then the students have to guess[br]what the infant is thinking,

0:10:11.126,0:10:12.277
to teach empathy.

0:10:12.301,0:10:15.407
There was one kid in a class[br]who was bigger than the rest

0:10:15.431,0:10:19.014
because he'd been held back,[br]been through the foster care system,

0:10:19.038,0:10:20.664
seen his mom get killed.

0:10:20.688,0:10:22.569
And he wanted to hold the baby.

0:10:22.593,0:10:25.228
And the mom was nervous[br]because he looked big and scary.

0:10:25.252,0:10:27.847
But she let this kid,[br]Darren, hold the baby.

0:10:27.871,0:10:29.720
He held it, and he was great with it.

0:10:31.014,0:10:34.500
He gave the baby back and started[br]asking questions about parenthood.

0:10:35.015,0:10:36.944
And his final question was,

0:10:36.968,0:10:40.269
"If nobody has ever loved you,[br]do you think you can be a good father?"

0:10:40.642,0:10:42.309
And so what Roots of Empathy does

0:10:42.333,0:10:45.053
is they reach down and they grab[br]people out of the valley.

0:10:45.077,0:10:46.930
And that's what weavers are doing.

0:10:49.300,0:10:51.487
Some of them switch jobs.

0:10:51.950,0:10:54.481
Some of them stay in their same jobs.

0:10:54.982,0:10:57.482
But one thing is,[br]they have an intensity to them.

0:10:57.982,0:10:59.365
I read this --

0:10:59.389,0:11:05.376
E.O. Wilson wrote a great book[br]called "Naturalist," about his childhood.

0:11:05.712,0:11:08.411
When he was seven,[br]his parents were divorcing.

0:11:09.291,0:11:12.458
And they sent him[br]to Paradise Beach in North Florida.

0:11:12.482,0:11:14.318
And he'd never seen the ocean before.

0:11:14.731,0:11:17.062
And he'd never seen a jellyfish before.

0:11:17.086,0:11:21.177
He wrote, "The creature was astonishing.[br]It existed beyond my imagination."

0:11:21.596,0:11:23.257
He was sitting on the dock one day

0:11:23.281,0:11:26.018
and he saw a stingray[br]float beneath his feet.

0:11:26.365,0:11:30.445
And at that moment, a naturalist was born[br]in the awe and wonder.

0:11:30.469,0:11:32.614
And he makes this observation:

0:11:32.638,0:11:33.855
that when you're a child,

0:11:33.879,0:11:37.026
you see animals at twice the size[br]as you do as an adult.

0:11:38.162,0:11:39.936
And that has always impressed me,

0:11:39.960,0:11:44.720
because what we want as kids[br]is that moral intensity,

0:11:44.744,0:11:47.688
to be totally given ourselves[br]over to something

0:11:47.712,0:11:50.046
and to find that level of vocation.

0:11:50.480,0:11:52.449
And when you are around these weavers,

0:11:52.473,0:11:55.441
they see other people[br]at twice the size as normal people.

0:11:55.465,0:11:57.198
They see deeper into them.

0:11:57.997,0:12:00.155
And what they see is joy.

0:12:01.315,0:12:04.719
On the first mountain of our life,[br]when we're shooting for our career,

0:12:04.743,0:12:06.902
we shoot for happiness.

0:12:07.649,0:12:10.696
And happiness is good,[br]it's the expansion of self.

0:12:10.720,0:12:12.466
You win a victory,

0:12:12.490,0:12:16.483
you get a promotion,[br]your team wins the Super Bowl,

0:12:16.507,0:12:17.657
you're happy.

0:12:18.149,0:12:21.870
Joy is not the expansion of self,[br]it's the dissolving of self.

0:12:22.764,0:12:27.002
It's the moment when the skin barrier[br]disappears between a mother and her child,

0:12:27.026,0:12:30.335
it's the moment when a naturalist[br]feels just free in nature.

0:12:31.232,0:12:34.177
It's the moment where you're so lost[br]in your work or a cause,

0:12:34.201,0:12:36.201
you have totally self-forgotten.

0:12:36.649,0:12:39.535
And joy is a better thing[br]to aim for than happiness.

0:12:39.559,0:12:42.600
I collect passages of joy,[br]of people when they lose it.

0:12:42.624,0:12:44.871
One of my favorite is from Zadie Smith.

0:12:44.895,0:12:48.205
In 1999, she was in a London nightclub,

0:12:48.229,0:12:51.324
looking for her friends,[br]wondering where her handbag was.

0:12:51.348,0:12:53.451
And suddenly, as she writes,

0:12:53.475,0:12:56.797
"... a rail-thin man with enormous eyes[br]reached across a sea of bodies

0:12:56.821,0:12:57.997
for my hand.

0:12:58.021,0:13:01.760
He kept asking me the same thing[br]over and over, 'Are you feeling it?'

0:13:01.784,0:13:05.633
My ridiculous heels were killing me,[br]I was terrified that I might die,

0:13:05.657,0:13:08.105
yet I felt simultaneously[br]overwhelmed with delight

0:13:08.129,0:13:10.440
that 'Can I Kick It?'[br]should happen to be playing

0:13:10.464,0:13:12.810
on this precise moment[br]in the history of the world

0:13:12.834,0:13:13.989
on the sound system,

0:13:14.013,0:13:16.141
and it was now morphing[br]into 'Teen Spirit.'

0:13:16.165,0:13:19.323
I took the man's hand,[br]the top of my head blew away,

0:13:19.347,0:13:22.747
we danced, we danced,[br]we gave ourselves up to joy."

0:13:23.680,0:13:27.486
And so what I'm trying to describe[br]is two different life mindsets.

0:13:27.998,0:13:32.466
The first mountain mindset, which is about[br]individual happiness and career success.

0:13:32.490,0:13:35.053
And it's a good mindset,[br]I have nothing against it.

0:13:35.077,0:13:37.371
But we're in a national valley,

0:13:37.395,0:13:40.228
because we don't have[br]the other mindset to balance it.

0:13:40.252,0:13:42.815
We no longer feel good[br]about ourselves as a people,

0:13:42.839,0:13:45.529
we've lost our defining[br]faith in our future,

0:13:45.553,0:13:48.935
we don't see each other deeply,[br]we don't treat each other as well.

0:13:49.538,0:13:51.529
And we need a lot of changes.

0:13:51.553,0:13:54.259
We need an economic change[br]and environmental change.

0:13:54.902,0:13:57.847
But we also need a cultural[br]and relational revolution.

0:13:57.871,0:14:02.141
We need to name the language[br]of a recovered society.

0:14:02.553,0:14:05.291
And to me, the weavers[br]have found that language.

0:14:05.593,0:14:08.694
My theory of social change[br]is that society changes

0:14:08.718,0:14:11.363
when a small group of people[br]find a better way to live,

0:14:11.387,0:14:13.062
and the rest of us copy them.

0:14:13.765,0:14:16.403
And these weavers have found[br]a better way to live.

0:14:16.427,0:14:18.380
And you don't have to theorize about it.

0:14:18.404,0:14:21.633
They are out there as community builders[br]all around the country.

0:14:22.277,0:14:24.554
We just have to shift our lives a little,

0:14:24.578,0:14:27.309
so we can say, "I'm a weaver,[br]we're a weaver."

0:14:27.999,0:14:29.365
And if we do that,

0:14:30.079,0:14:32.428
the hole inside ourselves gets filled,

0:14:32.452,0:14:35.277
but more important,[br]the social unity gets repaired.

0:14:35.301,0:14:36.468
Thank you very much.

0:14:36.492,0:14:40.557
(Applause)