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Before I get to 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,
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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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OK, 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
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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 a hundred 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: 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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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 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 10 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 the TV.
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Then I looked offshore,
and I noticed running lights on boats,
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so clearly it was getting dark,
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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 a 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
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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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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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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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,
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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 a 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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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
and cheered in unison
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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 21, 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 8, 2024, the moon's shadow
heads north from Texas to Maine.
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In 2045, on August 12,
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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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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 OK 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,
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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
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the years that come after.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)