I think in the work I’m doing now, which deals with disability, one sees frequently people who are sort of arguing so strenuously for the virtue of their dark experiences, but I do think that actually and again this goes back to this question of what is a human spirit.

Part of what a human spirit is, I think, is something that quests after meaning in darkness because life and the world are full of enormous amounts of darkness for everyone in one way or another, at one time or another, and as I began to think about those things, I thought, “well, what are these things that I value and why am I trying to spin from this gruesome time not simply to forget it, but to try to build something out of it? Where did these impulses come from?”