interconnected...
The
first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and
its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are
breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother
Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are
inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become
two cells. And dreams come true. In each of you are one quadrillion
cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a
community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in
hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of
processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one
human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a
one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has
undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe,
which is exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science
would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed
of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as
numerous as the stars of heaven.”
So
I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop
for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on
simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore
it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. You can feel it. It is
called life. This is who you are. Second question: who is in charge of
your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political
party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside
you, just as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the
conditions that are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is
that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming
together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.
Ralph
Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out
once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The
world would create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic,
delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come
out every night and we watch television.
This
extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the
multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a
thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as
complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done
great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring
creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying
challenge ever bequeathed to any generation. The generations before you
failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost
sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence.
Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better
boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the
dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful.
This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.
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