WEBVTT

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Before I get to the bulk
of what I have to say,

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I feel compelled just to mention
a couple of things about myself.

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I am not some mystical,
spiritual sort of person.

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I'm a science writer.

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I studied physics in college.

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I used to be a science
correspondent for NPR.

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Okay, that said:

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In the course of working
on a story for NPR,

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I got some advice from an astronomer
that challenged my outlook,

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and frankly, changed my life.

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You see, the story was about an eclipse,

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a partial solar eclipse
that was set to cross the country

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in May of 1994.

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And the astronomer - I interviewed him,

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and he explained what was going
to happen and how to view it,

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but he emphasized that, as interesting
as a partial solar eclipse is,

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a much rarer total solar eclipse
is completely different.

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In a total eclipse,
for all of two or three minutes,

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the moon completely blocks
the face of the sun,

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creating what he described
as the most awe-inspiring spectacle

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in all of nature.

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And so the advice he gave me was this:

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"Before you die," he said,

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"you owe it to yourself
to experience a total solar eclipse."

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Well honestly, I felt
a little uncomfortable

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hearing that from someone
I didn't know very well;

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it felt sort of intimate.

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But it got my attention,
and so I did some research.

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Now the thing about total eclipses is,

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if you wait for one to come to you,

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you're going to be waiting a long time.

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Any given point on Earth
experiences a total eclipse

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about once every 400 years.

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But if you're willing to travel,
you don't have to wait that long.

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And so I learned
that a few years later, in 1998,

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a total eclipse was going
to cross the Caribbean.

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Now, a total eclipse is visible
only along a narrow path,

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about 100 miles wide,

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and that's where the moon's shadow falls.

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It's called the "path of totality."

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And in February 1998,

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the path of totality
was going to cross Aruba.

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So I talked to my husband,
and we thought, well, February? Aruba?

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Sounded like a good idea anyway.

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(Laughter)

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So we headed south,

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to enjoy the sun
and to see what would happen

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when the sun briefly went away.

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Well, the day of the eclipse
found us and many other people

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out behind the Hyatt Regency,

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on the beach,

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waiting for the show to begin.

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And we wore eclipse glasses
with cardboard frames

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and really dark lenses that enabled us
to look at the sun safely.

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And a total eclipse
begins as a partial eclipse,

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as the moon very slowly
makes its way in front of the sun.

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So first it looked like the sun
had a little notch in its edge,

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and then that notch grew
larger and larger,

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turning the sun into a crescent.

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And it was all very interesting,
but I wouldn't say it was spectacular.

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I mean, the day remained bright.

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If I hadn't known
what was going on overhead,

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I wouldn't have noticed anything unusual.

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Well, about ten minutes before
the total solar eclipse was set to begin,

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weird things started to happen.

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A cool wind kicked up.

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Daylight looked odd,
and shadows became very strange;

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they looked bizarrely sharp,

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as if someone had turned up
the contrast knob on TV.

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And then I looked offshore,
and I noticed running lights on boats,

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so clearly it was getting dark,
although I hadn't realized it.

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Well soon, it was obvious
it was getting dark.

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It felt like my eyesight was failing.

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And then all of the sudden,

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the lights went out.

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Well, at that,

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a cheer erupted from the beach,

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and I took off my eclipse glasses,

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because at this point
during the total eclipse,

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it was safe to look at the sun
with the naked eye.

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And I glanced upward,

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and I was just dumbstruck.

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Now, consider that, at this point,
I was in my mid-30s.

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I had lived on Earth long enough

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to know what the sky looks like.

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I mean -

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(Laughter)

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I'd seen blue skies and grey skies,

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and starry skies and angry skies,

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and pink skies at sunrise.

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But here was a sky I had never seen.

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So first, there were the colors.

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Up above, it was a deep purple-grey,

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like twilight.

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But on the horizon, it was orange,

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like sunset,

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360 degrees.

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And up above, in the twilight,

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bright stars and planets had come out.

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So there was Jupiter,

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and there was Mercury,

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and there was Venus.

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And they were all in a line.

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And there, along this line,

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was this thing,

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this glorious, bewildering thing.

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It looked like a wreath
woven from silvery thread,

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and it just hung out there
in space, shimmering.

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Now, that was the sun's outer atmosphere,

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the solar corona.

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And pictures just don't do it justice.

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It's not just a ring or halo
around the sun;

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it's finely textured,
like it's made out of strands of silk.

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And although it looked
nothing like our sun,

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of course, I knew that's what it was.

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So there was the sun,
and there were the planets,

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and I could see how the planets
revolve around the sun.

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It's like I had left our solar system

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and was standing on some alien world,
looking back at creation.

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And for the first time in my life,

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I just felt viscerally connected
to the universe

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in all of its immensity.

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Time stopped,

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or it just kind of felt nonexistent,

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and what I beheld with my eyes -

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I didn't just see it,

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it felt like a vision.

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And I stood there in this nirvana

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for all of 174 seconds -
less than three minutes -

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when all of the sudden, it was over.

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The sun burst out,

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the blue sky returned,

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the stars and the planets
and the corona were gone,

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the world returned to normal.

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But I had changed.

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And that's how I became an umbraphile -

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an eclipse chaser.

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(Laughter)

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And so, this is how I spend my time
and hard-earned money.

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Every couple of years, I head off
to wherever the moon's shadow will fall

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to experience another couple minutes

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of cosmic bliss,

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and to share the experience with others:

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with friends in Australia,

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with an entire city in Germany.

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In 1999, in Munich,
I joined hundreds of thousands

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who filled the streets and the rooftops,

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and cheered in unison
as the solar corona emerged.

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And over time, I've become something else:

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an eclipse evangelist.

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I see it as my job

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to pay forward the advice
that I received all those years ago.

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And so let me tell you:

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Before you die,

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you owe it to yourself
to experience a total solar eclipse.

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It is the ultimate experience of awe.

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Now, that word, "awesome,"
has grown so overused

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that it's lost its original meaning.

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True awe, a sense of wonder
and insignificance

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in the face of something
enormous and grand,

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is rare in our lives.

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But when you experience it, it's powerful.

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Awe dissolves the ego.

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It makes us feel connected.

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Indeed, it promotes
empathy and generosity.

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Well, there is nothing truly more awesome
than a total solar eclipse.

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Unfortunately, few Americans
have seen one,

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because it's been 38 years

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since one last touched
the continental United States,

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and 99 years since one last crossed
the breadth of the nation.

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But that is about to change.

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Over the next 35 years,

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five total solar eclipses will visit
the continental United States,

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and three of them
will be especially grand.

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Six weeks from now, on August 21st, 2017 -

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(Applause)

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the moon's shadow will race
from Oregon to South Carolina.

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April 8th, 2024, the moon's shadow
heads north from Texas to Maine.

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In 2045, on August 12th,

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the path cuts from California to Florida.

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I say:

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What if we made these holidays?

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What if we -

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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(Cheers)

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What if we all stood together,

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as many people as possible,

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in the shadow of the moon?

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Just maybe, this shared experience of awe
would help heal our divisions,

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get us to treat each other
just a bit more humanely.

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Now, admittedly, some folks consider
my evangelizing a little out there;

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my obsession, eccentric.

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I mean, why focus so much attention
on something so brief?

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Why cross the globe -
or state lines, for that matter -

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for something that lasts three minutes?

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As I said:

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I am not a spiritual person.

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I don't believe in God.

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I wish I did.

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But when I think of my own mortality -

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and I do, a lot -

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when I think of everyone I have lost,

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my mother, in particular,

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what soothes me

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is that moment of awe I had in Aruba.

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I picture myself on that beach,

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looking at that sky,

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and I remember how I felt.

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My existence may be temporary,

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but that's okay because, my gosh,

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look at what I'm a part of.

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And so this is a lesson I've learned,

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and it's one that applies
to life in general:

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Duration of experience
does not equal impact.

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One weekend, one conversation -
hell, one glance -

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can change everything.

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Cherish those moments
of deep connection with other people,

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with the natural world,
and make them a priority.

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Yes, I chase eclipses.

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You might chase something else.

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But it's not about the 174 seconds.

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It's about how they change
the years that come after.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)