Though this may be my belief alone, I believe we are seeking something, each of us, in every sentence and every action, buzz around it like moths do a bright light. How honest we are with what we are looking for is how close we come to finding it. I believe, what we seek, is freedom from the ties that bind, that stop us from connecting fully with the source of all things, from letting love pass through fully, fearlessly. For me, that is what the Grandest Challenges speaks to. Framed in the language of health and the body, it is why we want to be well. Though the work is often at the level of particular diseases, it must also be at the barriers that stand in the way of people doing it for themselves, at the injustices that let the suffering of so many serve the purpose of a privileged few, holds them from joining their ranks as surely as their malaria does sick in bed.

The largest example of this, for me, is in war. My first taste of it was as a brand new doctor, working with a recently surrendered group of Khmer Rouge in the south of Cambodia....