These two quotations seem to go together somehow. Jane Goodall, the anthropologist, using the analogy of a rolled up newspaper, a tube, to explain the limitations of our vision. And then Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the Astrophysicist, whose world is expanded by looking through a different kind of tube:  his telescope. Am I looking through a limiting tube or an expanding telescope?

There are many windows through which we can look out into the world, searching for meaning … …Most of us, when we ponder on the meaning of our existence, peer through but one of these windows onto the world. And even that one is often misted over by the breath of our finite humanity. We clear a tiny peephole and stare through. No wonder we are confused by the tiny fraction of a whole that we see. It is, after all, like trying to comprehend the panorama of the desert or the sea through a rolled-up newspaper. Jane Goodall, Primatologist/Anthropologist

The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.    Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Astrophysicist

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