It's an anecdote he feels a bit safer in relating than most; it's only the third time he's repeated it to anyone, all the same. Maybe because it felt so surreal at the time, something out of a philosophy book, living instead of reading - and gaining about the same amount of understanding. He remembers sitting there on the edge of that lake and thinking it was no surprise that so much spirituality came out of those mountains, even if the didn't grasp it very well.

"I learned I'm not cut out for spirituality," he says. "But I really like people."

He's bad with them, sometimes unbelievably so, and he doesn't like social situations or having to really talk for that long, but - yes. Person to person, the capabilities of humanity, the human condition, the human will, call it whatever. Bruce is enthralled by people, and everything he does is to further that. No matter what it might look like.

(This is completely a response to Seoraj's mission statement. It just took him a minute to get there.)