WEBVTT 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, 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. 00:00:13.460 --> 00:00:20.480 Before the ozone layer existed, earth was not really able to sustain complex, multicellular life. 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:24.500 The composition of the atmosphere of the earth had almost no oxygen at all. 00:00:24.500 --> 00:00:28.000 We actually had a huge amount of carbon dioxide. 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:34.370 And the net effect was a almost (un)inhabitable planet. 00:00:34.370 --> 00:00:40.550 The only organisms that could exist that time were single-celled organisms. 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. 00:00:46.730 --> 00:00:54.000 And this organism has the special trick that we call “photosynthesis,” 00:00:55.050 --> 00:01:02.260 the ability to go take energy from the sun and transform carbon dioxide into oxygen. 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 00:01:06.920 --> 00:01:13.579 and converted all that carbon dioxide in the air into the oxygen that we now have. 00:01:13.579 --> 00:01:20.000 And it was a very slow process. First, they had to saturate the seas, 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:25.000 then they had to saturate the oxygen that the earth would absorb, 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:31.000 and only then, finally, could oxygen begin to build up in the atmosphere. 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:37.000 And about 600 million years ago, something really amazing happens. 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:42.000 The ozone layer forms from the oxygen that has been released in the atmosphere. 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. 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:54.000 There was a Cambrian explosion of life in the seas. 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:58.000 And the first plants got onto land. 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:02.000 In fact, there was actually no life on land ahead of that. 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:06.829 Nothing that you are familiar with today could exist without the contributions 00:02:06.829 --> 00:02:14.000 of these tiny organisms over those billions of years. 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:18.726 Imagine you were one of these little organisms two billion years ago. 00:02:18.726 --> 00:02:20.470 You might be born. 00:02:20.470 --> 00:02:21.766 You live a couple weeks. 00:02:21.766 --> 00:02:23.000 You die. 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:25.800 And you kind of feel like, well, nothing really changed. 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. 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:37.600 But what you wouldn’t have understood is that every breath 00:02:37.600 --> 00:02:44.560 that you took contributed to the possibility of countless lives after you – 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:47.656 lives that you would never see, 00:02:47.656 --> 00:02:53.000 lives that we are all a part of today. 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:56.500 And it’s worth thinking that maybe the meaning of our lives 00:02:56.500 --> 00:02:59.900 are actually not even within the scope of our understanding. 00:02:59.900 --> 00:03:02.740 Because it’s true of every one of these organisms, 00:03:02.740 --> 00:03:07.000 and it may also be true of us. 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:11.000 And if it’s a possible thing for cyanobacteria to completely transform 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:14.000 the physical environment of our planet, 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:20.500 it is absolutely a possible thing for us to do the same thing. 00:03:20.500 --> 00:03:26.480 We’ve been given this amazing gift of consciousness. 00:03:26.480 --> 00:03:33.000 And because of this gift, we have the ability to deeply understand our connectedness. 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:37.220 And because we can deeply understand our connectedness, 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 00:03:43.990 --> 00:03:52.000 to build our societies and to shape our lives.