Yesterday I made my first post after a hiatus due to cancer surgery. My first thing to say today is that I am so full of gratitude for the many people who have messaged me since my surgery and also since yesterday’s post. To know people are thinking of me and wishing me well is so powerful for me. Thank you all!
Today I am posting this late afternoon, having ventured up to London for a wonderful couple of hours with one of the most lovely humans I know, the abundantly generous and curious Oli Barrett (a past guest on WhatComesNext live here). What a truly wonderful person to have my first meeting back “up in town” with!
As I rode the train back home afterwards, I saw a Facebook post from another similarly abundant and curious soul, the author Guy Harrison, someone who I got to know way back when he lived in Cayman and who models deep curiosity for humans and humanity and has since built a successful career from this by writing numerous successful books. The post was simple, the image above, then a quote from Jodie Foster’s character in the movie Contact:
“I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever: a vision of the universe that tells us undeniably how tiny and insignificant and how rare and precious we all are.”
His post stirred both a memory and then a thought, so I posted a reply instinctively on that train ride home:
A favourite film. Years ago I installed a high spec surround sound system. Put on the DVD of Contact and went to the scene when contact was made and turned the sound up. Goosebumps. PS something else that has made me feel my insignificance is also tiny. Cancer. About to undergo chemo as they found a single cell cluster 0.4mm (1/50th of an inch) in size. Humility and the power of certain tiny things.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?