“Before I had kids, I thought of myself something like a Buddhist though not actually following. I would meditate. I’ve been to temples and so forth. I was interested in the philosophy. I probably tried to apply the philosophy to my life although there were aspects of the philosophy which I didn't understand. So, after having kids, like I said, you suddenly experience something close to what I would say is ego-death, and that's where you... suddenly you're not the most important anymore. One of the goals of Buddhism is to come to the full realization of how your ego is in fact a delusion and that the ‘I’ that you referred to is very much a fabricated ‘I’. So you think that’s an academic premise until you experience that. But then I did experience that, and that's why I say it was very liberating. At the same time, while my philosophy was applied, I had to experience it. I used to be a little more stoic than I am now, and I am much more interested in… like I had no interest in psychology prior to having children and now I have a lot of interest in psychology… because you see in your children aspects of your own personality playing out in them. So you realize that your own personalities, at least in part, are made up of the people who raised you, like my mother. So I can sense my mother in myself and I see me in my children so now I feel much more the urge to come to know oneself and understand why one behaves the way they do. That to me is the most interesting problem, and it’s a nice thing because it fits nicely with teaching because number one: I have individual students who individually are trying to just be themselves, their best selves. I like that phrase. Then also, I want my children to be their best selves. When I'm writing, I used to really be annoyed at myself. I found myself always writing about psychologically realistic people. Although I didn't really want to write about that I just always found myself writing about genuine psychological drama. Now, I feel like actually it makes perfect sense because the unification of my professional, my creative, my family life, is this understanding.”