1 00:00:00,713 --> 00:00:01,864 [Oliver Jeffers] 2 00:00:01,888 --> 00:00:03,829 [An ode to living on Earth] 3 00:00:05,325 --> 00:00:06,579 Hello. 4 00:00:06,603 --> 00:00:09,611 I'm sure by the time I get to end of this sentence, 5 00:00:09,635 --> 00:00:11,101 given how I talk, 6 00:00:11,125 --> 00:00:13,990 you'll all have figured out that I'm from a place called 7 00:00:14,014 --> 00:00:15,283 planet Earth. 8 00:00:15,307 --> 00:00:17,037 Earth is pretty great. 9 00:00:17,061 --> 00:00:18,881 It's home to us. 10 00:00:20,117 --> 00:00:21,307 And germs. 11 00:00:21,331 --> 00:00:23,624 Those [blip] take a back seat for the time being, 12 00:00:23,648 --> 00:00:26,632 because believe it or not, they're not the only thing going on. 13 00:00:26,656 --> 00:00:29,406 This planet is also home to cars, brussels sprouts; 14 00:00:29,430 --> 00:00:32,014 those weird fish things that have their own headlights; 15 00:00:32,038 --> 00:00:33,211 art; 16 00:00:33,235 --> 00:00:34,712 fire, fire extinguishers, 17 00:00:34,736 --> 00:00:36,918 laws, pigeons, bottles of beer, 18 00:00:36,942 --> 00:00:38,093 lemons and light bulbs; 19 00:00:38,117 --> 00:00:39,879 Pinot noir and paracetamol; 20 00:00:39,903 --> 00:00:42,482 ghosts, mosquitoes, flamingos, flowers, 21 00:00:42,506 --> 00:00:44,045 the ukulele, elevators and cats, 22 00:00:44,069 --> 00:00:45,578 cat videos, the internet; 23 00:00:45,602 --> 00:00:47,331 iron beams, buildings and batteries, 24 00:00:47,355 --> 00:00:48,840 all ingenuity and bright ideas, 25 00:00:48,864 --> 00:00:50,019 all known life, 26 00:00:50,043 --> 00:00:51,622 and a whole bunch of other stuff. 27 00:00:51,646 --> 00:00:54,053 Pretty much everything we know and ever heard of. 28 00:00:54,077 --> 00:00:56,053 It's my favorite place, actually. 29 00:00:56,077 --> 00:00:57,634 This small orb, 30 00:00:57,658 --> 00:01:00,488 floating in a cold and lonely part of the cosmos. 31 00:01:01,363 --> 00:01:04,434 Oh, the accent is from Belfast, by the way, which is ... 32 00:01:04,458 --> 00:01:05,672 here. 33 00:01:05,696 --> 00:01:06,846 Roughly. 34 00:01:07,860 --> 00:01:10,241 You may think you know this planet Earth, 35 00:01:10,265 --> 00:01:11,439 as you're from here. 36 00:01:11,463 --> 00:01:12,625 But chances are, 37 00:01:12,649 --> 00:01:15,463 you probably haven't thought about the basics in a while. 38 00:01:15,487 --> 00:01:16,931 I thought I knew it. 39 00:01:16,955 --> 00:01:18,395 Thought I was an expert, even. 40 00:01:18,419 --> 00:01:21,363 Until, that is, I had to explain the entire place, 41 00:01:21,387 --> 00:01:22,871 and how it's supposed to work, 42 00:01:22,895 --> 00:01:25,525 to someone who had never been here before. 43 00:01:25,549 --> 00:01:26,747 Now that you might think, 44 00:01:26,771 --> 00:01:29,006 although my dad always did say 45 00:01:29,030 --> 00:01:31,057 the sure sign of intelligent life out there 46 00:01:31,081 --> 00:01:33,469 is that they haven't bothered trying to contact us. 47 00:01:33,493 --> 00:01:36,850 It was actually my newborn son I was trying to explain things to. 48 00:01:37,185 --> 00:01:38,803 We'd never been parents before, 49 00:01:38,827 --> 00:01:39,978 my wife and I, 50 00:01:40,002 --> 00:01:43,589 and so treated him like most guests when he arrived home for the first time, 51 00:01:43,613 --> 00:01:44,986 by giving him the tour. 52 00:01:45,010 --> 00:01:46,637 This is where you live, son. 53 00:01:46,661 --> 00:01:48,347 This room is where we make food at. 54 00:01:48,371 --> 00:01:51,664 This is the room we keep our collection of chairs, and so on. 55 00:01:51,688 --> 00:01:52,859 It's refreshing, 56 00:01:52,883 --> 00:01:55,672 explaining how our planet works to a zero-year-old. 57 00:01:55,696 --> 00:01:56,871 But after the laughs, 58 00:01:56,895 --> 00:02:00,164 and once the magnitude that new humans know absolutely nothing 59 00:02:00,188 --> 00:02:03,212 settles on you and how little you know [unclear], 60 00:02:03,236 --> 00:02:06,380 explaining the whole planet becomes quite intimidating. 61 00:02:06,404 --> 00:02:07,816 But I tried anyway. 62 00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:10,912 As I walked around those first few weeks, 63 00:02:10,936 --> 00:02:13,221 narrating the world as I saw it, 64 00:02:13,245 --> 00:02:16,390 I began to take notes of the ridiculous things I was saying. 65 00:02:16,414 --> 00:02:18,707 The notes slowly morphed into a letter 66 00:02:18,731 --> 00:02:21,048 intended for my son once he learned to read. 67 00:02:21,072 --> 00:02:22,541 And that letter became a book 68 00:02:22,565 --> 00:02:25,247 about the basic principles of what it is to be a human 69 00:02:25,271 --> 00:02:27,711 living on Earth in the 21st century. 70 00:02:28,243 --> 00:02:30,417 Some things are really obvious. 71 00:02:30,767 --> 00:02:32,679 Like, the planet is made of two parts: 72 00:02:32,703 --> 00:02:34,449 land and sea. 73 00:02:35,124 --> 00:02:38,410 Some less obvious until you think about them. 74 00:02:38,434 --> 00:02:39,688 Like, time. 75 00:02:40,228 --> 00:02:43,220 Things can sometimes move slowly here on Earth. 76 00:02:44,030 --> 00:02:46,304 But more often, they move quickly. 77 00:02:46,623 --> 00:02:49,392 So use your time well, it will be gone before you know it. 78 00:02:50,401 --> 00:02:51,551 Or people. 79 00:02:51,988 --> 00:02:55,202 People come in all different shapes, sizes and colors. 80 00:02:55,567 --> 00:02:56,964 We may all look different, 81 00:02:56,988 --> 00:02:59,090 act different and sound different, 82 00:02:59,114 --> 00:03:00,321 but don't be fooled. 83 00:03:00,345 --> 00:03:01,702 We are all people. 84 00:03:01,726 --> 00:03:04,940 It doesn't skip me that of all the places in the universe, 85 00:03:04,964 --> 00:03:06,234 people only live on Earth, 86 00:03:06,258 --> 00:03:07,839 can only live on Earth. 87 00:03:07,863 --> 00:03:10,069 And even then, only on some of the dry bits. 88 00:03:10,093 --> 00:03:12,919 There's only a very small part of the surface of our planet 89 00:03:12,943 --> 00:03:14,918 that is actually habitable to human life, 90 00:03:14,942 --> 00:03:17,307 and squeezed in here is where all of us live. 91 00:03:17,331 --> 00:03:20,135 It's easy to forget when you're up close to the dirt, 92 00:03:20,159 --> 00:03:22,498 the rocks, the foliage, the concrete of our lands, 93 00:03:22,522 --> 00:03:25,688 just how limited the room for maneuvering is. 94 00:03:25,712 --> 00:03:28,156 From a set of eyes close to the ground, 95 00:03:28,180 --> 00:03:30,704 the horizon feels like it goes forever. 96 00:03:30,728 --> 00:03:32,609 After all, it's not an every-day ritual 97 00:03:32,633 --> 00:03:35,038 to consider where we are on the ball of our planet 98 00:03:35,062 --> 00:03:37,027 and where that ball is in space. 99 00:03:37,051 --> 00:03:39,979 I didn't want to tell my son the same story of countries 100 00:03:40,003 --> 00:03:42,884 that we were told where I was growing up in Northern Ireland. 101 00:03:42,908 --> 00:03:44,750 That we were from just a small parish, 102 00:03:44,774 --> 00:03:47,149 which ignores life outside its immediate concerns. 103 00:03:47,173 --> 00:03:50,807 I wanted to try to feel what it was like to see our planet 104 00:03:50,831 --> 00:03:53,196 as one system, as a single object, 105 00:03:53,220 --> 00:03:54,633 hanging in space. 106 00:03:54,657 --> 00:03:55,808 To do this, 107 00:03:55,832 --> 00:03:58,268 I would need to switch from flat drawings for books, 108 00:03:58,292 --> 00:03:59,776 to 3D sculpture for the street, 109 00:03:59,800 --> 00:04:01,804 and I'd need almost 200 feet, 110 00:04:01,828 --> 00:04:03,283 a New York City block, 111 00:04:03,307 --> 00:04:05,561 to build a large-scale model of the moon, 112 00:04:05,585 --> 00:04:07,283 the Earth and us. 113 00:04:07,831 --> 00:04:10,992 This project managed to take place on New York City's Highline park 114 00:04:11,016 --> 00:04:12,209 last winter, 115 00:04:12,233 --> 00:04:15,327 on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11's mission around the Moon. 116 00:04:15,351 --> 00:04:16,684 After its installation, 117 00:04:16,708 --> 00:04:19,241 I was able to put on a space helmet with my son 118 00:04:19,265 --> 00:04:22,187 and launch, like Apollo 11 did half a century ago, 119 00:04:22,211 --> 00:04:23,361 towards the Moon. 120 00:04:24,028 --> 00:04:25,243 We circled around, 121 00:04:25,267 --> 00:04:27,321 and looked back at us. 122 00:04:27,814 --> 00:04:29,290 What I felt was 123 00:04:29,314 --> 00:04:31,282 how lonely it was there in the dark. 124 00:04:31,831 --> 00:04:33,545 And I was just pretending. 125 00:04:33,569 --> 00:04:35,086 The Moon is the only object 126 00:04:35,110 --> 00:04:37,354 even remotely close to us. 127 00:04:37,378 --> 00:04:39,260 And at the scale of this project, 128 00:04:39,284 --> 00:04:41,308 where our planet was 10 feet in diameter, 129 00:04:41,332 --> 00:04:43,879 Mars, the next planet, will be the size of a yoga ball 130 00:04:43,903 --> 00:04:45,703 and a couple of miles away. 131 00:04:46,465 --> 00:04:48,655 Although borders are not visible from space, 132 00:04:48,679 --> 00:04:49,965 on my sculpture, 133 00:04:49,989 --> 00:04:51,568 every single border was drawn in. 134 00:04:51,592 --> 00:04:54,616 But rather than writing the country names on the carved-up land, 135 00:04:54,640 --> 00:04:56,465 I wrote over and over again, 136 00:04:56,489 --> 00:04:58,783 "people live here, people live here." 137 00:04:59,284 --> 00:05:01,704 "People live here." 138 00:05:01,728 --> 00:05:04,164 And off on the Moon, it was written, 139 00:05:04,188 --> 00:05:05,522 "No one lives here." 140 00:05:05,990 --> 00:05:07,593 Often, the obvious things 141 00:05:07,617 --> 00:05:10,330 aren't all that obvious until you think about them. 142 00:05:10,688 --> 00:05:13,204 Seeing anything from a vast enough distance 143 00:05:13,228 --> 00:05:14,656 changes everything, 144 00:05:14,680 --> 00:05:16,887 as many astronauts have experienced. 145 00:05:16,911 --> 00:05:19,292 And human eyes have only ever seen our Earth 146 00:05:19,316 --> 00:05:21,172 from as far as the Moon, really. 147 00:05:21,196 --> 00:05:22,362 It's quite away further 148 00:05:22,386 --> 00:05:24,854 before we get to the edges of our own Solar System. 149 00:05:24,878 --> 00:05:27,714 And even out to other stars, to the constellations. 150 00:05:28,373 --> 00:05:31,531 There is actually only one point in the entire cosmos 151 00:05:31,555 --> 00:05:34,413 that is present in all constellations of stars, 152 00:05:34,437 --> 00:05:36,675 and that presence is 153 00:05:36,699 --> 00:05:38,441 here, planet Earth. 154 00:05:39,069 --> 00:05:41,696 Those pictures we have made up for the clusters of stars 155 00:05:41,720 --> 00:05:45,140 only make sense from this point of view down here. 156 00:05:46,490 --> 00:05:48,664 Their stories only make sense here on Earth. 157 00:05:48,688 --> 00:05:50,664 And only something to us. 158 00:05:51,220 --> 00:05:52,545 To people. 159 00:05:52,569 --> 00:05:54,829 We are creatures of stories. 160 00:05:55,276 --> 00:05:56,906 We are the stories we tell, 161 00:05:56,930 --> 00:05:58,863 we're the stories we're told. 162 00:05:59,176 --> 00:06:02,671 Consider briefly the story of human civilization on Earth. 163 00:06:03,049 --> 00:06:05,612 It tells of the ingenuity, elegance, 164 00:06:05,636 --> 00:06:07,919 generous and nurturing nature of a species 165 00:06:07,943 --> 00:06:10,776 that is also self-focused, vulnerable, 166 00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:12,617 and defiantly protective. 167 00:06:12,641 --> 00:06:15,544 We, the people shield the flame of our existence 168 00:06:15,568 --> 00:06:18,283 from the raw, vast elements outside our control, 169 00:06:18,307 --> 00:06:19,664 the great beyond. 170 00:06:20,283 --> 00:06:23,284 Yet it is always to the flame we look. 171 00:06:24,458 --> 00:06:26,053 For all we know, 172 00:06:26,077 --> 00:06:27,276 when said as a statement, 173 00:06:27,300 --> 00:06:30,136 it means the sum total of all knowledge. 174 00:06:30,160 --> 00:06:31,613 But when said another way, 175 00:06:31,637 --> 00:06:33,542 for all we know, 176 00:06:33,566 --> 00:06:35,966 it means that we do not know at all. 177 00:06:36,407 --> 00:06:40,033 This is the beautiful, fragile drama of civilization. 178 00:06:40,522 --> 00:06:42,832 We are the actors and spectators of a cosmic play 179 00:06:42,856 --> 00:06:44,506 that means the world to us here, 180 00:06:44,530 --> 00:06:46,680 but means nothing anywhere else. 181 00:06:46,704 --> 00:06:48,982 Possibly not even that much down here, either. 182 00:06:49,006 --> 00:06:51,696 If we truly thought about our relationship with our boat, 183 00:06:51,720 --> 00:06:52,935 with out Earth, 184 00:06:52,959 --> 00:06:55,872 it might be more of a story of ignorance and greed. 185 00:06:57,220 --> 00:06:59,221 As is the case with Fausto, 186 00:06:59,245 --> 00:07:01,153 a man who believed he owned everything 187 00:07:01,177 --> 00:07:03,716 and set out to survey what was his. 188 00:07:03,740 --> 00:07:06,113 He easily claims ownership of a flower, 189 00:07:06,137 --> 00:07:08,104 a sheep, a tree and a field. 190 00:07:08,724 --> 00:07:11,069 The lake and the mountain prove harder to conquer, 191 00:07:11,093 --> 00:07:12,760 but they, too, surrender. 192 00:07:13,109 --> 00:07:15,310 It is in trying to own the open sea 193 00:07:15,334 --> 00:07:17,752 where his greed proves his undoing, 194 00:07:17,776 --> 00:07:19,847 when, in a fit of arrogance, 195 00:07:19,871 --> 00:07:22,466 he climbs overboard to show that sea who is boss. 196 00:07:22,870 --> 00:07:24,618 But he does not understand, 197 00:07:24,642 --> 00:07:27,459 slips beneath the waves and sinks to the bottom. 198 00:07:28,355 --> 00:07:29,585 The sea was sad for him, 199 00:07:29,609 --> 00:07:31,743 but carried on being the sea. 200 00:07:32,903 --> 00:07:35,410 As did all the other objects of his ownership. 201 00:07:35,434 --> 00:07:38,445 But the fate of Fausto does not matter to them. 202 00:07:39,601 --> 00:07:43,349 For all the importance in the cosmos we believe we hold, 203 00:07:43,373 --> 00:07:45,032 we'd have nothing 204 00:07:45,056 --> 00:07:46,611 if not for this Earth. 205 00:07:46,635 --> 00:07:49,077 While it would keep happily spinning, 206 00:07:49,101 --> 00:07:50,500 obliviously without us. 207 00:07:51,135 --> 00:07:53,382 On this planet, there are people. 208 00:07:54,311 --> 00:07:55,659 We have gone about our days, 209 00:07:55,683 --> 00:07:57,723 sometimes we look up and out, 210 00:07:57,747 --> 00:08:00,364 mostly we look down and in. 211 00:08:00,913 --> 00:08:03,929 Looking up and by drawing lines between the lights in the sky, 212 00:08:03,953 --> 00:08:06,190 we've attempted to make sense out of chaos. 213 00:08:06,769 --> 00:08:10,254 Looking down, we've drawn lines across the land to know where we belong, 214 00:08:10,278 --> 00:08:11,579 and where we don't. 215 00:08:11,603 --> 00:08:14,411 We do mostly forget that these lines that connect the stars 216 00:08:14,435 --> 00:08:16,196 and those lines that divide the land 217 00:08:16,220 --> 00:08:18,498 live only in our heads. 218 00:08:18,522 --> 00:08:20,458 They, too, are stories. 219 00:08:21,022 --> 00:08:23,373 We carry out our everyday routines and rituals 220 00:08:23,397 --> 00:08:25,466 according to the stories we most believe in, 221 00:08:25,490 --> 00:08:27,982 and these days, the story is changing as we write it. 222 00:08:28,006 --> 00:08:30,155 There is a lot of fear in this current story, 223 00:08:30,179 --> 00:08:31,339 and until recently, 224 00:08:31,363 --> 00:08:33,569 the stories that seemed to have the most power 225 00:08:33,593 --> 00:08:34,776 are those of bitterness, 226 00:08:34,800 --> 00:08:37,942 of how it had all gone wrong for us individually and collectively. 227 00:08:37,966 --> 00:08:41,450 It has been inspiring to watch how the best comes from the worst. 228 00:08:41,474 --> 00:08:44,212 How people are waking up in this time of global reckoning, 229 00:08:44,236 --> 00:08:47,728 to the realization that our connections with each other 230 00:08:47,752 --> 00:08:49,903 are some of the most important things we have. 231 00:08:49,927 --> 00:08:51,121 But stepping back. 232 00:08:51,145 --> 00:08:52,654 For all we've had to lament, 233 00:08:52,678 --> 00:08:55,685 we spend very little time relishing the single biggest thing 234 00:08:55,709 --> 00:08:57,629 that has ever gone right for us. 235 00:08:57,653 --> 00:08:59,383 That we are here in the first place, 236 00:08:59,407 --> 00:09:00,601 that we are alive at all. 237 00:09:00,625 --> 00:09:02,283 That we are still alive. 238 00:09:02,307 --> 00:09:05,244 A million and a half years after finding a box of matches, 239 00:09:05,268 --> 00:09:08,180 we haven't totally burned the house down. 240 00:09:08,204 --> 00:09:09,368 Yet. 241 00:09:09,392 --> 00:09:11,726 The chances of being here are infinitesimal. 242 00:09:11,750 --> 00:09:12,917 Yet here we are. 243 00:09:12,941 --> 00:09:14,339 Perils and all. 244 00:09:14,363 --> 00:09:16,768 There have never been more people living on Earth. 245 00:09:16,792 --> 00:09:17,942 Using more stuff. 246 00:09:18,251 --> 00:09:20,768 And it's become obvious that many of the old systems 247 00:09:20,792 --> 00:09:22,839 we invented for ourselves 248 00:09:22,863 --> 00:09:24,029 are obsolete. 249 00:09:24,053 --> 00:09:25,631 And we have to build new ones. 250 00:09:26,014 --> 00:09:27,418 If it wasn't germs, 251 00:09:27,442 --> 00:09:30,109 our collective fire might suffocate us before long. 252 00:09:30,569 --> 00:09:33,643 As we watch the wheels of industry grind to a halt, 253 00:09:33,667 --> 00:09:35,731 the machinery of progress become silent, 254 00:09:35,755 --> 00:09:38,151 we have the wildest of opportunities 255 00:09:38,175 --> 00:09:39,775 to hit the reset button. 256 00:09:40,096 --> 00:09:41,466 To take a different path. 257 00:09:41,953 --> 00:09:43,770 Here we are on Earth. 258 00:09:44,457 --> 00:09:46,492 And life on Earth is a wonderful thing. 259 00:09:47,101 --> 00:09:48,355 It looks big, this Earth, 260 00:09:48,379 --> 00:09:50,236 but there are lots of us on here. 261 00:09:50,260 --> 00:09:52,809 Seven and a half billion at last count, 262 00:09:52,833 --> 00:09:54,899 with more showing up every day. 263 00:09:55,610 --> 00:09:56,801 Even so, 264 00:09:56,825 --> 00:09:58,531 there is still enough for everyone, 265 00:09:58,555 --> 00:10:00,011 if we all share a little. 266 00:10:01,015 --> 00:10:02,682 So please, 267 00:10:02,706 --> 00:10:03,856 be kind. 268 00:10:05,145 --> 00:10:06,764 When you think of it another way, 269 00:10:06,788 --> 00:10:09,012 if Earth is the only place where people live, 270 00:10:09,036 --> 00:10:12,256 it's actually the least lonely place in the universe. 271 00:10:13,376 --> 00:10:15,582 There are plenty of people to be loved by, 272 00:10:15,606 --> 00:10:17,148 and plenty of people to love. 273 00:10:17,709 --> 00:10:19,812 We need each other. 274 00:10:19,836 --> 00:10:21,736 We know that now, more than ever. 275 00:10:22,955 --> 00:10:24,105 Good night.