1 00:00:00,630 --> 00:00:07,100 Taking a deep breath is one of the most simple ways to connect with our own bodies, 2 00:00:07,100 --> 00:00:13,460 But taking a deep breath was not something that was possible on this earth three billion years ago. 3 00:00:13,460 --> 00:00:20,480 Before the ozone layer existed, earth was not really able to sustain complex, multicellular life. 4 00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:24,500 The composition of the atmosphere of the earth had almost no oxygen at all. 5 00:00:24,500 --> 00:00:28,000 We actually had a huge amount of carbon dioxide. 6 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:34,370 And the net effect was a almost (un)inhabitable planet. 7 00:00:34,370 --> 00:00:40,550 The only organisms that could exist that time were single-celled organisms. 8 00:00:40,550 --> 00:00:46,730 Luckily for us, one of those organisms that was alive at this time was something called a cyanobacteria. 9 00:00:46,730 --> 00:00:54,000 And this organism has the special trick that we call “photosynthesis,” 10 00:00:55,050 --> 00:01:02,260 the ability to go take energy from the sun and transform carbon dioxide into oxygen. 11 00:01:02,260 --> 00:01:06,920 And over the course of billions of years, little by little these bacteria spread across the planet 12 00:01:06,920 --> 00:01:13,579 and converted all that carbon dioxide in the air into the oxygen that we now have. 13 00:01:13,579 --> 00:01:20,000 And it was a very slow process. First, they had to saturate the seas, 14 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:25,000 then they had to saturate the oxygen that the earth would absorb, 15 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:31,000 and only then, finally, could oxygen begin to build up in the atmosphere. 16 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:37,000 And about 600 million years ago, something really amazing happens. 17 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:42,000 The ozone layer forms from the oxygen that has been released in the atmosphere. 18 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:50,000 And shortly after the ozone layer came into place, the earth was able to sustain complex, multi-cellular life. 19 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:54,000 There was a Cambrian explosion of life in the seas. 20 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:58,000 And the first plants got onto land. 21 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:02,000 In fact, there was actually no life on land ahead of that. 22 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:06,829 Nothing that you are familiar with today could exist without the contributions 23 00:02:06,829 --> 00:02:14,000 of these tiny organisms over those billions of years. 24 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:18,726 Imagine you were one of these little organisms two billion years ago. 25 00:02:18,726 --> 00:02:20,470 You might be born. 26 00:02:20,470 --> 00:02:21,766 You live a couple weeks. 27 00:02:21,766 --> 00:02:23,000 You die. 28 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:25,800 And you kind of feel like, well, nothing really changed. 29 00:02:25,800 --> 00:02:33,000 I mean, I had no purpose in this life. The world I came to is exactly the same as the world that I left. 30 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:37,600 But what you wouldn’t have understood is that every breath 31 00:02:37,600 --> 00:02:44,560 that you took contributed to the possibility of countless lives after you – 32 00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:47,656 lives that you would never see, 33 00:02:47,656 --> 00:02:53,000 lives that we are all a part of today. 34 00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:56,500 And it’s worth thinking that maybe the meaning of our lives 35 00:02:56,500 --> 00:02:59,900 are actually not even within the scope of our understanding. 36 00:02:59,900 --> 00:03:02,740 Because it’s true of every one of these organisms, 37 00:03:02,740 --> 00:03:07,000 and it may also be true of us. 38 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:11,000 And if it’s a possible thing for cyanobacteria to completely transform 39 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:14,000 the physical environment of our planet, 40 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:20,500 it is absolutely a possible thing for us to do the same thing. 41 00:03:20,500 --> 00:03:26,480 We’ve been given this amazing gift of consciousness. 42 00:03:26,480 --> 00:03:33,000 And because of this gift, we have the ability to deeply understand our connectedness. 43 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:37,220 And because we can deeply understand our connectedness, 44 00:03:37,220 --> 00:03:43,900 we’re the ones that have the decision on how we’re going to go use that knowledge 45 00:03:43,990 --> 00:03:52,000 to build our societies and to shape our lives.