“If you had total creative freedom, what would you do?,” a friend asked me last year.

Without hesitation, I replied, “I’d write a screenplay.”

I stepped up to the podium, as I had done for 7 years, to teach Constitutional Law.

I took a deep breath to start speaking—and felt a sinking sensation in my chest.

If you looked into my mind’s control room a few years ago, you’d find an overworked, adrenaline-fueled crew on high alert.

They operated under a relentless motto: “Imagine the worst, and you’ll never be disappointed.”

To become a butterfly, the caterpillar must accept its own death.

The process begins when an impulse deep within the caterpillar signals that it’s time for a radical change. When that signal arrives, the caterpillar hangs itself upside down from a twig or a leaf and forms a chrysalis.