Our kind of research might be one of the first projects to go. Our work is not urgent; it's not the cure for cancer or Alzheimer's. But we have a way of understanding human life that you can't get anywhere else, and it lays the foundation for important, actionable things.

Being human means there's a wall-builder in each of us. Our minds naturally divide the world into me and not-me, us and them. For thousands of years, our sages have taught that we're all one, yet we still divide wherever we look.

We make artificial divisions everywhere: Democrats and Republicans, black and white, millennials and baby boomers. Even those of us who are against building walls find ourselves pointing accusing fingers at those wall-builders.

Robert J. Waldinger Quotes