Obi Wan Kenobi Is Not Our Only Hope

Writer Mary Karr described people who live with mental illness as perhaps having “more bandwidth.” Others have described it to me as “living without a shield.” Both descriptions hint to the quality intuitive people have when they are open to others’ emotions as well as their own. Understandably, these people often live with more pain than those who are shielded or those who lack bandwidth, but they are also our witnesses, our futurists, our singers, poets, and scientists. They are often, but not always, our geniuses who see patterns others cannot.