[Your Majesty, Madame President, Your Holiness; honored guests, fellow speakers, chairpersons of the board, members of the faculty, esteemed colleagues, those poised on the edge of new endeavours, ladies and gentlemen], I am honoured to have been asked to address this august gathering at this auspicious hour, especially in light of the present season.
We all know the reason we are here, and I will not trivialize it. The matter which grasps our attention is at once minute and, in its own way, massive; it is complex, yet it is also deceptively simple. I relish the chance to share with you a few of my inmost musings on how these characteristics seem to wax and wane according to the perspective of the observer. By way of the reference point, or benchmark, if you will, I would like to put forward an old axiom, and I hope you'll forgive the double entendre: If you want something done right, do it yourself. How many times have we regretted ignoring the import of that simple phrase, and when, if not now, has it deserved a more careful application? We live in a complex world, and one that does not easily forgive the slipshod or careless. Let us put away the old notions, the rallying cries of recent times, the shrill importunities of the present. What concerns us is not independence of spirit, but interdependence of action.
Not so very long ago, when Henry the Navigator first established his observatory at Sagres -- and here again the parallel is not insignificant -- there were a number of people concerned with precisely the same issues with which we are at grips today. The difference, of course, is that today there are more of us, and we have had centuries to absorb what Henry and his contemporaries could only glimpse. Why then do we find ourselves alternately more sanguine and restive? Has experience taught us nothing, and to what degree can we expect history to teach us about such things? Clearly, history and experience are different things, the former a book on a high a shelf, the latter an ever-present padlocked chain. Both can teach us, but only to the extent that we are willing to learn. So, when we compare ourselves to Henry, we must realize that he was operating on an entirely different empirical basis. The dissolution of a valuable historical context for this situation seems paradoxical, yet it is not.
We are all aware that science alone, including its mathematical branches, cannot confront this issue squarely; nor can flagrant appeals to natural law, or what might be called the static order of phenomena . No, this is something which we must face individually and collectively, and the method, if the word "method" is adequate to describe our course of action, and if there is a single one, must be found inside each of us as we strive to achieve our common goal.
The sooner we all become factota in this effort, the faster the pace we will be able to set for ourselves. In this instance, the old adage "time is money" serves as well. Whether we take it literally or figuratively, it is obvious that no progress can be made, no value received, no lessons learned, without a concerted, singleminded investment. Hegel had his synthesis, Twain his life on the Mississippi. None of us can hope to negotiate that which is uppermost on our minds without benefit of a preconception, and that is as true of what we are all focused upon now as it was in the days of yore. Put another way, the days of yore are the same as the days of mine. Only the iconography changes.
But enough of specifics. I would like to leave you all with the story of a small boy lying on a sand dune. He is dozing with his eyes half shut when he notices a column of tiny ants marching along the dune. He watches them disappear into a small hole, then sees that the hole opens onto a little terrace, or staging area, perfectly formed, perfectly level, projecting from the spill of sand.
The boy carefully places a blade of dune grass on the terrace, and waits. Soon, a contingent of ants comes out of the hole. For a moment, none of them seems to notice the blade of grass. Then gradually they all gather around it, pick it up, and topple it over the edge of the terrace. Several of the ants remain and replace the grains of sand dislodged by the grass; the others march off across the dune again. After the repair team has returned to the hole, the boy takes a pinch of sand and, again, very carefully places it on the terrace. After a while, the larger column of ants returns from its journey on the dune. As each of the ants walks across the terrace, it stops to pick up a single grain of sand from the little mound the boy has dropped in their path, and carries it into the hole.
The boy watches all afternoon, and never sees another ant. Finally, he goes home.
I know what you all are thinking, but before you jump to conclusions, ask yourself this question: Would I have done things any differently? I think you will be surprised by your own answer.
Thank you.
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DOL
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