So, how’s your 2011 been? Mine: the proverbial best and worst of times. I had my first book published, finished my second, and made it (much to my own massive surprise) onto the Thinkers50 list. But I also lost, in the same month, two of the people I loved the most. That’s life: the act of living in the human universe — in the full ebb and flow of its deep tides of joy, sorrow, accomplishment, and grief.