Yesterday, I gave a talk to about a hundred people about Sapiens First.

The surreal-ness of such an experience cannot be overstated. I made up everything about Sapiens First. The name, the colors, the logo, the website design, the theory of change, my title of “Executive Director”. It is not too different from the stories or drawings that I would make as a kid.

I practiced the talk in my room, walking around the dirty laundry on the ground. I rehearsed my lines, speaking them out loud, believing yet not knowing if others would listen.

What gets you up the day after a ghosted email or a botched funder pitch? Self-belief is the one thing a founder must have in her heart. In my time bringing Sapiens First to life, I have pitched my friends, funders, allies, even door-to-door strangers. But by far, the most important sale you do as a founder is to yourself.

Yet I still feel lost in the face of the AI crisis. Will the movement meet the moment? I don’t know, and I feel dread clutched in my heart – that the oligarchs might win in their endless quest for power – and that we might all suffer for it.

The words came tumbling out. I emphasized the extremity of the issue. That a radical situation calls for a radical solution, that this is the fight for our lives, to protect democracy and the future of humanity.

I felt the ideas resonate through the room, like the ring of an organ in a church. What is the Constitution but an idea? What is democracy or science or Christianity but an idea?

Ideas are brought to life by belief, and there is nothing like an ardent believer. People, many older than I; they asked me what they should do with their lives; they asked me for their vote of confidence in pursuing their own journey. I did my best. I felt the way that Olivia Rodrigo might at a concert, or the way John Green does at a book signing.

In the evening, I came back to my bedroom, dirty laundry still on the floor, exhausted, but hopeful, feeling a fiction coming to life.