Transcriber: Claudia Solano Reviewer: Patrícia Imada
(Portuguese): The enchanting and hospitable capital of Minas Gerais.
Hello.
So, the first thing that I wanted to say is
as I am speaking about my story
you really want to be listening
not for the story of Christopher Howe.
Because my story isn't unique to me.
It's the story of many people,
the people that I've encountered along my travels, along my journeys
but it's a universal story.
It' s a story about all of us.
It' s a story about what's possible
for all of us when we're willing to take a great risk,
when we're willing to step outside of our comfort zone,
outside of what we already know
into what is unknown, into a place that might not be safe
for the benefit of other people.
So this is the story of my life for the past few years.
I'll begin because like somebody said earlier
these stories of our lives don't really have a beginning or an end
but we need some place to start.
So, I'll start when I was living in Germany back in 2004
and I had a great life, I was a high school teacher, in Germany,
and at the same time there were certain things
going on in my life that were not so good.
I was in the middle of a divorce,
I had two children that I loved dearly.
But I was in a depressed place.
And I had recently graduated from university,
I have a degree in History
and another degree in Biology.
And I was depressed in a way because
during school I realized that things like the Bible
and the sacred texts were written by man
and I thought that somehow God wasn't involved in the process.
And I became disillusioned with religion
with spirituality for a few years.
Until I found it again when I was living in Germany,
a friend introduced me to a book by Paulo Coelho,
who many of you know, who wrote the book "The Alchemist".
And this book reminded me of something inside of myself,
something that I had forgotten,
something that was part of who I am,
about being on the spiritual path.
So, I remembered my deep love
when I was in college for the country of Ethiopia.
And how much I wanted to go there
since I was seventeen years old.
And after reading the "The Alchemist",
I decided to buy a plane ticket to Ethiopia.
Although it's too expensive.
I didn't have enough money to get there so I flew instead to Kenya.
And on my way to Ethiopia through Kenya,
I met two film producers on a very remote island
near the coast of Somalia.
And these film producers,
they're special film producers indeed,
they produced the movies "American Psycho" and "Virgin Suicides",
I don't know if you guys have seen these movies here.
But they took me into their house.
And I started working for them as a writer
developing the script for a Paulo Coelho adaptation
called "Veronica Decides to Die".
So it's very interesting, one of the first lessons that I've learned
was when we take these great leaps of faith
to go on our journeys to go towards our destiny,
how all the right people arrive just at the right times
when we need them.
So I met these people right in this moment
and I lived with them for about two months in Africa
and they went back to Los Angeles
and I continued on my way to Ethiopia where I didn't
necessarily find what it was that I was looking for.
I've gone into this great journey to this other country
to go some place else, and I didn't find it.
I'm not quite sure what it was that I was looking for in that moment
but it wasn't there.
So I ended up back in Germany
and my friends from Kenya, the film producers,
called me and asked me to come
finishing developing the script for them
in Los Angeles, "Veronica Decides to Die".
So I flew out to Los Angeles and we finished the script
they went back to Africa and I stayed for four months
in a beautiful home, right on the Venice Beach,
in a house designed by Frank Gehry, it was beautiful.
They came back and their manager quit,
and I stepped right into his position
and I started managing film companies,
something that I'd never done before, I had no idea how to do.
And I've much respect for all the people producing
this event because I know what goes into it.
They put me into a very nice house in the Los Angeles hills
and where I lived for the next year.
My children came to live with me as well
and at some point during that time
I had my children go back to live with their mom.
They were very young and I thought they needed to be with her.
So they went to live with their mother
and about a month later I was in the mountains above Los Angeles
when a very strange thing happened.
I was in the middle of a ceremony, and as part of the ceremony
there's a point for meditation.
It was very zen like in this meditation where
you clear the mind of all your thoughts.
And the best way to do that
is by just allowing whatever is there to be.
And not to add meaning to the thoughts that come
into your mind, alright?
To get to this place of silence
and of simple being and presence.
And as I was there inside of the ceremony,
in the middle of this meditation,
I went into a visionary state.
This might sound crazy, it sounds crazy to me.
But the case was I went into this visionary state
where I saw myself walking from Los Angeles,
first through the deserts of Northern Mexico,
just walking by myself.
Simply with time alone and with time with God.
In the next scene I saw myself walking through
the mountains of the Sierra Madre in Mexico,
being helped by people along the way.
And I realized as I was walking that I was
in the middle of this vision and that I shouldn't
be having it, that I should somehow stop it,
it was crazy, it was nuts there was no way
I was going to be walking through Mexico.
So I stopped it and I returned back to the place
where I was and I went back into my meditation
and as soon as I did that I was transported
back into this vision where again I was walking
through the mountains of Mexico,
through Guatemala, through the forest of Panama,
through Colombia, Ecuador, through Peru ending up
eventually in this place in the middle of the Amazon forest.
And as I going through this journey in my vision,
I kept cutting it off.
Saying: "No, this is crazy,
I'm not going to do this, this is nuts", right?
Then I decided at some point that I was going to
just allow this vision to be, just allow it to have that.
Before I came into the ceremony,
I prayed, I was looking for something to set me back on my spiritual path.
And I asked God just to be of service.
And I realized during this vision, that this vision was the answer
to my prayer to be of service.
I wasn't quite sure how yet.
I took it on that this was something that was actually possible, right?
And this is something that you guys want to hear, right?
When we have an idea for a project,
when we have an idea for a place in our communities,
in our lives when we can make a difference,
oftentimes, the first thing that comes to us
are the borders, the blocks, the barriers,
"Oh, I can't do that, that's not me.
Maybe I'm not a scientist,
or maybe I'm not a film maker, maybe I'm not this or that".
We put all these borders and limitations on what it is
that we can do, none of them are true, ok?
Who you are is that anything is possible in your life
and you can make a big difference.
Just one person, especially when it's in contribution
to the world around you and that's the metaphor
for what it was that I was about to do.
So the first step after taking it on,
and saying that this is indeed possible,
and ok I'll look at this,
is that I had to tell people about it.
I had to make a verbal declaration
that I was walking to Brazil.
So I had to tell my bosses, I had to tell my mom,
I had to tell my family that I'm actually leaving
this mansion that I lived in Los Angeles
and I'm going to live like a vagabond.
On the road.
And didn't even know how I was going to do it.
I had no plan, no plan, none.
Just that I was doing it.
So for the next two weeks I was very excited,
telling people about this new possibility
that was available for me.
Something that was so crazy that I couldn't have sat down and thought:
"This is what I'm going to do, this makes a lot of sense", right?
It made no sense at all and that was kind of the beauty of it.
Two weeks later there was another ceremony
and I went to the ceremony praying, asking for guidance
because I had no idea what I was doing.
And again I saw another vision,
the second of this series,
where, again this is going to sound crazy,
but I saw a vision of Mary in the sky
over the sea of Cortez.
And she didn't say anything to me.
But only her hands were like this.
And I saw myself handing out blank pieces of paper
to the people that I met on the road.
Who wrote down, whatever they wanted to write.
They wrote down prayers, to complete their past.
It was a perfect moment with a perfect stranger,
someone who they didn't know
and with whom they didn't have to pretend.
And they could just be totally honest with.
And that they can finish the past
so that they can see into the future
this expanded horizon where there were no limits.
They weren't dragging a limited past based on what they know.
Maybe those experiences were good, maybe they weren't,
but if we're still just going based in what it is that we know
we're just going to keep creating more of that into the future,
So if you can clear your past, even if it's just momentarily,
and look fresh into the horizon, without limitations,
and see what's possible there and again,
outside of fear or trying to make it, or just survival.
You know, survival is a game that we all loose, right?
So ultimately, we're all going to loose it.
And if you can get over your fear of death,
most other things like public speaking for example,
that most people are very afraid of, myself included,
these are irrational fears
and it's very easy and very simple
to take a step out and just to go through it.
You know, courage is the art of having fear
but doing it anyway, alright?
So you're going to have all these fears, all these blocks
about why you can't do the things that you want to do
and do it anyway, be who you are in contribution to the people
around you and to your communities.
So, once I said yes to this project,
everything started lining up perfectly.
I thought again that: "Ok, I can make it
I'm going to do this on my own."
But of course that doesn't work.
And it's no fun to like make it like:
"I'm going to do this. I'm going to force my way through the Amazon forest.
To Brazil."
That just doesn't happen.
But naturally, once I declared this, all the pieces started
aligning themselves perfectly,
collaborating towards my reaching my goal deep in the Amazon.
So, soon after I met a filmmaker, his name was Mikki Willis,
from Elevate Films, who decided to promote my project through a documentary
where the plan was we were going to raise
10 thousand dollars that would fund my trip.
It was great, it was a platform kind of like this.
And I was able to speak my project
and the problem was we only made 800 dollars.
(Laughter)
So I didn't know how I was going to do it.
And yet, I did it anyway.
So I'm very grateful for Mikki Willis
and for Elevate Films for giving me the mouthpiece because this is
the most important thing.
You have to share what you're going to do
and then you have to do it, right?
So it does no good to have an idea sitting
up here if you're not sharing it
which is one of the reasons why I love TED,
because we're sharing these ideas.
But also you have to take a step.
What is it than you can today
to turn these dreams, these visions into reality?
So I want to really encourage all of you to be able to do.
So my project what it symbolized in part
was the possibility of people getting clear.
Of people removing the confines of the past
and be able to step into a future
that was limitless and free.
And to able to see through this person walking
this gringo that if he can walk from Los Angeles to Brazil
what else is possible for me in my life? Right?
Like, anything is possible.
So of course the journey is fraught,
is filled with temptations, with breakdowns,
anytime we're on the road of life
for sure we're going to have flat tires,
the car is going to break down,
we're going to feel sick.
A great mentor of mine once said,
and I don't know if the joke will carry here in Brazil
but, sometimes, you just don't feel like doing something,
you said you were going to do it,
but you just don't feel like it right?
Well, in California we have a lot of Mexican food or Tex Mex food.
And we have this thing called a burrito.
Which, sometimes they're not always so good, right?
And he said something once,
"You know, my feelings can change with a bad burrito." Right?
Am I really going to let this stop, what it is that I'm up to in life, right?
So when you're feeling scared or feeling these things,
continue to be up to it, no matter what.
That's the idea, right?
So, also this is the art of writing down your prayers.
Or write whatever it was, even atheists took advantage of this project
when we were writing down stuff, right?
It was a cathartic opportunity for it.
The idea is that when you give your word
this is your promise, your promessa, right?
And the art of catholic pilgrimage.
You give your word to something
and then you do it, right?
But it's not in the realm of right or wrong,
or good or bad or evil or anything like this, ok?
So Aristotle was the first person who used the term "Harmatia"
which is where in the New Testament we have the idea for sin.
It's when you have a bow and arrow,
and you have a target,
and you shoot the arrow for this target, right?
But you miss the mark.
And there's no morality involved in this at all, right?
We had a promise and we didn't keep our promise.
We had a promise to our wives, to our children, to our communities.
And somewhere along the way for whatever reasons,
because the very fact that we are on the road,
we had a breakdown and we did not keep our promise.
So the idea is, when we break our word,
when we break our promise,
to restore our promise, to restore our word
literally by speaking it, or by writing it down,
so that we can come complete with the past
and then make a new promise, right?
So there were a few places where I didn't keep my word in this walk:
I didn't walk between Panama and Colombia, for example,
because the police prevented me from doing it, ok?
But there were other places where there were incredible triumphs.
Walking for 30 days through the Amazon
without any maps or compass, I was lost ten times.
Just on rivers and just kind of feeling where I was.
It was an incredible project.
So, I would like to bring your attention to my website:
iamwalking.org
Where you can go and actually write down your own prayers
to clear your own past in a way that's totally anonymous and safe
and also declare your new possibilities in life.
Thank you so much for your time. (Applause)