I'm not sure I've ever posted one of my speeches, but I don't doubt that I've used blog content as part of speeches I've given. Here, then, is the barely modified text of my last speech.
This is one of those times where everything is changing very quickly.
Not that it hadn’t been changing all along, it is simply more obvious to me, now.
Clarity can do that to you.
Or, perhaps, should I say, "Clarity can do that FOR you?"
It seems prudent at this juncture to tell you a few things about a few things. So, that’s three times three, or nine things, by the time I’m done. This may require a slight acceleration as we near the end, so you’ll have to listen more quickly as we hasten to the close. It may surprise you to learn that I took out several words already in this speech, then burned up all that free time with this sentence.
Here’s thing one:
Sometimes the good news and the bad news are the same news.
1. Like, it’s all coming back to me now and my memories are like a rush of melancholy and joyous things – little stuff, like falling in love and my first heartbreak.
2. Another bit of news might be, “Hey, you are going to get a new computer.” I’ll allow you to process that news for a moment.
3. Or if someone were to say to you, “Wow. You look fantastic… for your age!”
Thing two goes like this:
You cannot know exactly how much you don’t know.
4. If you’ve heard of infinity and have a solid grasp of that concept, then you already know that how much you don’t know is really a big thing!
5. But, have you ever stopped to consider the idea that on your journey if you only go half way to your destination with every step, you’ll never arrive? Even if you could move just a little closer, until you were moving only one angstrom (a unit of length equal to one hundred-millionth of a centimeter, 10–10 meter, used mainly to express wavelengths and interatomic distances), then half an angstrom, etc., you’ll be thinking in terms of subatomic distances, right down at that little tiny place where Ph.D. physics majors sometimes find God.
6. Can you know how many stars there are in the universe? Do you need to have a number to express such a thing? Or, can you be comfortable with leaving such things to a higher power? And, if you like the idea of higher powers, simply square or cube this sentence and be happy, right?
That brings us right up to thing three, doesn’t it?
Here are a few reasons we like three.
7. It’s because we like having choices to make, but two things to choose from is just not enough and four starts to cause anxiety. Seriously, look at websites and you’ll see what I mean.
8. When you were a kid, wasn’t it always, “Ready, set, go!” We love this stuff, like Pavlov’s dog, we are conditioned to be happy with three.
9. In religion, you have the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Columbus had the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. J.R.R. Tolkien (who needed three initials) wrote one of the bestselling novels as a trilogy, and if you are going to Trilogy in La Quinta, you’ll find three palm trees at the corner of Madison and Avenue 60. Oops, that was four examples!
Are you confused, now?
If yes, then we go together. Which is something like a bumper sticker I once saw,
it said, “Don’t Follow Me, I’m Lost, Too!”
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