Neil deGrasse Tysons Speech Will Leave You SPEECHLESS One of the Most Eye Opening Speeches Ever

the gym instructor pointed to my father

online

and said cyril tyson everyone look at

him

he does not have the body type that

would excel

in track and they used him as an example

and he says

what no one is going to tell me what i

can’t do in my life

and he used that as a reason to

start running and he started track

in that moment he decided that his one

of his next

tasks in life would be to take up

running

and excel at it within a few years of

that he became world class

at one time had the fifth fastest time

in the world

in 1948 the olympics was not yet ready

to come back

to us because we’re still reeling

roiling from

the second world war instead there was

still an olympics

it was called the gi olympics and it was

held

in hitler’s stadium so he competed

alongside jewish

athletes so there they are competing

against

the new york athletic club and his best

friend johnny johnson

okay was coming around the back stretch

might have been the quarter mile coming

on the final straightaway

and a runner from the new york athletic

club is a few paces behind him

and johnny johnson overhears that

runner’s coach

say catch that

and he overheard this and so what did he

say to himself

he said this is one he ain’t gonna catch

and that extended his his his lead

to the finish line at the end of the day

what matters is for who and what you

become in life

for me at least was what level of wisdom

did he glean in his life and then

successfully communicate to me either by

example

or by just explicit statement and

that combination of those two means of

delivery

had some important uh impacts

we live in a very fractured world today

i don’t know if it’s the most fractured

ever

but what is clear is that the internet

has enabled in social media have enabled

people to

tribalize you might go your whole life

without ever finding another

person who thinks the earth is flat you

go online

and you see them all so you have ways

to say why you are different from other

people

and i don’t know that that’s always a

healthy

place to be you can draw a line in the

sand between people

who transgress but

do not hold power over you from those

who transgress

and do so the coach who said catch that

he doesn’t have power over johnny

johnson unless you allow him to

there’s a famous quote from martin

luther king

you can only be ridden if your back is

bent

i apportioned my emotional reactions to

where it actually mattered for my life’s

trajectory

when i grew up it was very common to

hear the phrase

sticks and stones can break my bones but

words will never hurt me

this was an inoculation against

hate speech really against just evil

people

just nasty people you able to develop a

system of defenses against unpleasant

people

out there and i haven’t heard that

phrase in a long time

i don’t hear it recited in the

elementary schools

what i think has happened over the years

is we came to learn

as a civilization that words can be

hurtful

and words can sort of

change your mood or set you into a

depression

what i see on the flip side of that coin

however is people are less

able to deal with the very same people

who were around today who were around

back then

who are calling you names the people who

might be bullying you on the internet

by saying things about you we i don’t

know that we have

how to defend against that now other

than seeing a counselor

for your emotional state i can say from

the era in which i grew up

i don’t give a rat’s ass what you say to

me okay um

unless you are between me and some goal

then i have i’ll

have to navigate that some way so now

what do i need to do

because you’re in my way do i dig under

you go around you

leap over you you got to navigate it i

think

high school that’s where you learn how

to deal with difficult people

there’s not a single high school movie

that doesn’t show the angst of the

cliques that have formed

and what the relationships are that they

have to one another it’s this microcosm

of

real stuff that goes on in the real

world there are beautiful people and

they will get jobs you’re not gonna get

okay there are people who are nasty

you’re gonna have to navigate them there

are people who

you cannot interact with for whatever

reason or another

they’re gonna be in the cubicle next to

you in your workplace

so i think we undervalue the total

social pot

that people are tossed into in their

high school experience

for me what i do for the public is

prime almost 80 plus percent of it

is driven by duty

not by ambition because i

can do something

and if i can do it better than others

and it’s for a greater good in society i

would be irresponsible

if i did not that many people look for

meaning

in life and i’m thinking to myself

you have more power than that you have

the power

to create meaning in your life

rather than passively look for it

so for me i create the meaning

and meaning to me is do i know more

about the world today than i did

yesterday

that enhances meaning for me and if that

accumulates

and accrues daily in a month you you

know

way more than you did than just that day

later so that you continue to grow

no one ever told me that i had to search

for meaning in life

to begin with so that was never even a

part of me

my first question of me wasn’t where do

i find meaning it was how do i create

meaning and that started early

early teens school they view you as this

empty vessel that they pour

information in and you test it over here

you get a high grade you’re praised

you might even give the commencement

speech

is that who become the shakers and

movers of the world

i i can tell you this if we’re if

einstein were here and we’re talking

with einstein

we can talk them for hours and hours and

hours you know what question will never

come out of our mouths

is what college did you go to i want to

go to that same college

i bet most of your people have sat in

this chair it’s not about what college

they went to

it’s about their own initiative their

own drive their own ambitions

their own curiosity that is not

taught in school sadly

school should as a minimum preserve that

curiosity

for you it yeah if you lost some of it

because

it’s not going to be in all of us put it

back in

so that when you graduate school you can

give literal meaning to the word

commencement

commencement means beginning it doesn’t

mean ending

and so you leave school and you say to

yourself i now

know how to learn i now have a curiosity

of all things i have yet to be exposed

to

and i will now become a lifelong learner

i’m a scientist um raised

catholic but started drifting

when i was like in third grade none of

it was making much sense to me

there were no decisions made in the

house that referenced the bible or god

or jesus or anything

so in that sense decision making was

secular and rationally informed

and i thank my parents for that i valued

that as someone

being raised by them because it meant if

something didn’t make sense they’d

do it because i said so well that’s not

a rational reply to your child

they would have the reason for it and we

discuss the reasons so

early on as i became more visible i’d

get letters and people would ask

about god and i don’t know much about

god

you know so i my early letters were well

sciences

religion is that and i can’t help you

any further then i thought to myself

that’s not fair to the person who wrote

the question

they’re coming from a place some

religious tradition whatever that

tradition is

and i if i’m receiving that letter

there’s a contract an implicit contract

between

me and the person who’s seeking my

guidance

my wisdom my insights

and i owe it to that person to know as

much as possible

as i can about where they’re coming from

i read things that take me to places

where other people think if i’m

an educator i want to know that because

when you’re speaking to me

and i have some understanding of you i i

can

navigate we talk about navigation

earlier i can navigate

your receptors for learning

i want to i want to teach you how to

think about the world

and then you say i have a new way to

understand the world and just run off

don’t

you don’t even look back because a new

level of hunger has descended upon you

and

methods and tools to feed that hunger

are now accessible to you

so my impact would be that others are

impacted

and they don’t even remember that i had

something to do with it

on my tombstone i want the epitaph

be ashamed to die until you have scored

some victory for humanity

you want the world to be any of us i

think should want the world to be a

little better off for you having lived

in it

that doesn’t mean people praising you

that that’s no

not even about that so what do you have

to give

with no expectation of return

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