You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.

I'm your host, Elise Hew. We are continuing to share a handful of talks, conversations, and podcast episodes from the TED Archive that we hope will spark some inspiration

in all of us as we think about the end of the year and the resolutions and practices we hope to

bring into our lives in 26. And on this final day of 2025, we bring you a beautiful talk that

asks us to consider a fundamental question. If you had to explain to a newborn what it means to be

a human living on earth in the 21st century, what would you say? In this talk from 2020,

visual artist Oliver Jeffers put his answer in a letter to his son, sharing pearls of wisdom

on existence and the diversity of life. He offers observations of the

beautiful, fragile drama of human civilization and why we must go into every day, every month,

every year, with a profound sense of love for this planet, each other, and our collective future.

And for those of you who can, I recommend heading to TED.com to watch this talk

again, after this, to see it come great. It's home to us and germs.

It'll take a back seat for the time being,

because believe it or not, they're not the only thing going on.

This planet is also home to cars.

Brussels sprouts.

Those weird fish things that have their own headlights.

Art.

Fire extinguishers.

Laws, pigeons, bottles of beer,

lemons and light bulbs,

Pino noir and parasitomo. Ghost. Ghosts, mosquitoes, flamingos,

...