Your 21-year-old daughter is a table-top-dancing heroin addict.

Her younger sister, the second of your two children, suffers from severe panic attacks.

Both have been close to suicide more than once.

You yourself have stumbled, pitched and reeled through your own life: it’s littered with failed relationships, alcohol abuse, depression and more.

What do you do?

If you’re Sally

“Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.”

The line from Janis Joplin’s 1960s hit Me and Bobby Mcgee (written by Kris Kristofferson), was the first thing that sprung to mind when I read @farah_way’s dm asking if I would write something about freedom for the Free The Hikers blog.

I went to YouTube (where else?), and searched the tune to see what I could find.

The universe speaks to me constantly.

If I don’t pay attention, or listen well enough, it tends to shout. Deafeningly. Just lke I felt my Mom (pictured at left in 2009), sometimes did when I was a kid.

Still, I often don’t hear. Just like I didn't as a chlld.

On other occasions, the universe whispers in my ear so softly that I have a hard time deciphering its message. When that happens,

Susan notes: The Charter for Compassion has been signed since I published this in September 2009. Find out more and sign it yourself here.

In February 2008, former nun and religious scholar Karen Armstrong shared a wish with the worldwide TED community.

(Scroll down to see and hear the amazingly eloquent, thoughtful and thought-provoking talk in which she made the wish.)

She asked

My Mom has Alzheimer's.

She doesn't know what time of the day it is, let alone the day of the week, or the month.

Sometimes she doesn't know even know the season of the year. Or what she just ate. Or the name of her cat.

One day soon she won't know who I am either.

But even in her demented state of mind, she knows it's wrong to torture people, she knows that sometimes you

My dinner companions sensibly went home (or to their hotels), after an excellent Thai meal at a trendy Kuala Lumpur restaurant. I too was headed back to my digs at the Prince Hotel, when I heard the strains of music from above.

What could I do? I had to investigate :)

Four floors up, at the top of the atrium, I found a hideaway bar hosting a reggae night. People were dancing, and so within