a greatest gift as a species is not our
body
we're not the fastest we're not the
strongest our body hardly distinguishes
itself in any way in the animal kingdom
our greatest sort of gift in the Tree of
Life it's our mind
maybe it is we who are in prison
thinking our body matters when in fact
at the end of the day it's really all
about your thoughts all about your
dreams all about how we react
to our life experience in this world and
share it with others if you can make a
phone call to the 20 year old Neil
deGrasse Tyson you can give that young
man a bit of advice what would you tell
him I wouldn't give any advice at all
because
the act of being 20 is itself part of
what it is to become who you are
if you start siphoning information from
the future you the act of having learned
it firsthand by experiencing is what
made me the person who would put me in a
position to call the 20 year old and say
here's the advice the act of learning by
life experience has sufficient value
that to just have someone tell you what
you should or shouldn't do is not what
makes you who and what you are who and
what you are is what you do and what you
learn from what you did yeah you can
tell somebody something but if they
don't think it's true it's it'll fall on
deaf ears let them find out and the act
of finding out is the lesson not the
lesson itself so there is nothing I can
tell myself at anytime in life because I
am learning what it is to be alive I'm
learning what it is to become a
scientist I'm learning what it is when
people treat me one way or another
because they presume I should be an
athlete rather than a scientist that's
life experience that feeds what I am
today
even if I'm steeped in ignorance at some
point in my life and then that gets
figured out because I visit someplace so
I read a book it's life explains I can't
just tell someone
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the immigrant who comes to America they
come to America not a penny to their
name and they work hard and they they
start a business and they finally get
actually wealthy and they struggled and
they knew the meaning of a dollar and
they and so then they have a family and
they say to themselves I I will never
have my kids experience the poverty that
I had or the hunger or not knowing where
the next year that will not happen with
my kids the kids have everything
provided for them and then they become
deadbeats then the parent says where did
I go wrong I gave you everything I
didn't have it's the fact that you
started with nothing gave you the work
ethic to become who you are so to turn
around and say now I'm gonna change all
that for my kids of course you know you
don't want your kids to go hungry so
they become some League like you but
just don't presume that you're
latter-day knowledge you're a latter-day
well if introduced into a next
generation as advice or as a handout
will create the person that you are in
fact you can circumvent it can derail
that pathway I think the greatest of
people that have ever been in society
they were never versions of someone else
they were
themselves you don't think about Michael
Jordan at the basketball player and say
oh he was just like this other player no
is Michael Jordan I think the greatest
of people in society carved niches that
represented the unique expression of
their combination guitar
and if everyone had the luxury of
expressing the unique combination to
talents in this world our society would
be transformed over
you