I'm going to start today with an exhortation for life, life, life, that greatest gift in the known universe.

Of all of the universe that we know of, the 100 billion galaxies, each with 100 billion stars,

we are the only conscious, conceptual thinking, reasoning, moralizing species in existence.

And that is the greatest achievement of the universe.

The human mind is the greatest achievement that the universe is capable of. And the human mind is the only

thing that gives the universe any meaning at all. There is no meaning in the intergalactic voids

of empty space. There is no meaning in the 98% prevalence of hydrogen. There is no meaning,

as the famous biologist once said,

I don't know if there is a god, but if there is,

he seems to be inordinately fond of beetles,

because of how many there are.

There is no meaning in the universe,

save that which is contained in the few pounds of wetware jammed between your eardrums.

And without meaning, purpose, morality, philosophy, all there is, is, as Blaise Pascal famously

chilled his heart with, all there is is atoms and space. Stuff and nothing, things and void,

asteroids, and a gulf. And in this backwater planet,

on an inconsequential M-class star in the Goldilocks zone, on the spiral arm of an indifferent and unremarkable galaxy, is the greatest eruption of life and thought and reason

that the universe is capable of. And to be in possession of a couple of pounds of incandescent wetware

known as the human brain is the greatest gift that exists in this or conceivably

any other universe, my friends.

Your brain is the greatest gift the universe is capable of, and you have the capacity to make

more. Think of how much you consume that you can't make more of.

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