In 2020, just before the pandemic hit, I embarked on a project that would ultimately change my life. I contacted dozens of women who had attended middle and high school with me — friends who had iced me out, friends who warmly welcomed me afterwards, acquaintances, “cool” girls, outcasts, “brains,” and bullies — and asked them to talk with me about their memories of the social milieu we inhabited during the 1970s. Forty years after the bullying I experienced in middle school,

Once our brains are ruled by anarchy, a chain of events kicks in that prevents us from achieving inner peace and from being our best emotional, spiritual, and physical selves. Virtually all religions, forms of meditation, and the myriad self-help programs available have at their core, and as their ultimate objective, some form of inner peace that is free from distractions, distortions, misplaced obsessions, and unrealistic goals. The universal desires for money, love, and pow