The Chinese ideogram for "person" depicts a figure grounded in the earth
and stretching toward heaven. What is she reaching for? What dream is
she pursuing? Why so seemingly becalmed on one end, yet so relentlessly
restless on the other? The character suggests the desiny of every human
being: to be fated, but also to be free; to be both free and fated.
Each of us is planted in the mud and muck of daily existence, thrust
into a world not of our choosing, and tethered then to hard-rock
reality; each of us is also endowed with a mind able to reflect on that
reality, to choose who to be in light of the cold facts and the merely
given. We each have a spirit capable of joining that mind and soaring
overhead, poised to transgress boundaries, destroy obstacles, and
transform ourselves and the world.
Bill Ayers, from "Teaching Toward Freedom"
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