Autumn's the mellow time.
You're in America now," I said. "Our idea of diplomacy is showing up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other and asking which you'd prefer.
There's always, always a choice. My options might really, truly suck, but that doesn't mean there isn't a choice.
Whenever you've got a choice, do good, kiddo. It isn't always fun or easy, but in the long run it makes your life better.
The human mind isn't a terribly logical or consistent place. Most people, given the choice to face a hideous or terrifying truth or to conveniently avoid it, choose the convenience and peace of normality. That doesn't make them strong or weak people, or good or bad people. It just makes them people.
Growing up is all about getting hurt. And then getting over it. You hurt. You recover. You move on. Odds are pretty good you're just going to get hurt again. But each time, you learn something.
There's more magic in a baby's first giggle than in any firestorm a wizard can conjure up, and don't let anyone tell you any different.
We pretend to be a free society, and we pretend to be an adult society, but if you look at the facts, our news is just as contrived, and controlled as Pravda!
We've pretended too much in our family, Luke, and hidden far too much. I think we're all going to pay a high price for our inability to face the truth.
And you, America, that passion made you. You were not born to prosperity, you were born to love freedom. You did not say "en masse," you said "independence. " But we cannot have all the luxuries and freedom also.
When we, hijras, started our activism, we had to tell people, "We exist, we are humans. Please give us nothing but our basic dignity. " The biggest misery in the world, I believe, is the feeling of being unloved, and that this community faces a lot. You're not even considered to be human. You're considered transparent. We were ignored until we started organizing, when HIV first became a factor. Even in the HIV world, people could not believe that hijras have sex. And then also we were put in the category of men having sex with men, the gay community.