Have you or anyone you know ever been in jail, perhaps for a political protest or even a traffic violation. Perhaps someone has done prison time for a longer stint? If so, what was the crime?
Or have you worked with the incarcerated as a lawyer or in law enforcement, or as a teacher, or a health professional, or as an advocate for prisoners’ rights or reform of the penal system?
Floods are one of the most destructive examples of Nature’s power - or of human failure.
Rains, sub-sea earthquakes, and breached dams have brought destruction and death to those in their wake. Far smaller floods seldom make the news, but also bring personal loss and tragedy to many every year.
Most of us are or have been in a marriage, and certainly all of us have witnessed the marriages of relatives and friends.
Shakespeare famously said, "let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments" What do you think makes a good marriage? Can we ever know what goes on in another couple’s marriage?
The contemporary novelist Rebecca Makkah has said, “You’ll never know anyone’s marriage but your own. And even then you’ll only know half of it.”
We gather in communities: families, neighborhoods, states, nations, tribes, subcultures, and communes. Humans are herd-instinct creatures and so we gather. But community is fluid and fragile; it can be improved or harmed from within or without. Despite our herd instincts, some people may choose to live outside the community, or even "off the grid."
How do you experience community? Has your relationship to community changed over time or been altered by people and events? Did love, war, life, death, or Covid change your community and your place in it? What could community become in the future?
Are you retired? Is your spouse retired or are any of your close friends retired?
If you are, how did you know when it was time, or was your retirement mandatory? How has the experience been: good, bad, or still working it out?
How are you enjoying life now on your own schedule? What are you doing to fill the time? Do you have too much time on your hands? By no longer working, do you feel a loss of relevancy or achievement?