philosopher a barrister and a judge
there’s only one thing that I know for
sure in a hundred years time every one
of us will be dead that being so I
thought it might be a good idea if we
woke up to this chance of a lifetime
there’s a chance to a lifetime and to
make each remaining day as good as it
gets
when I was 17 I woke up one night and I
couldn’t go back asleep I thought of the
galaxies outside of my window trillions
and of stars and planets like little
specks of cosmic dust once such speck
was planet earth and on that speck there
I was lying awake wondering what am i
doing here on earth I was like an ant on
an anthill gazing into this amazing
universe but I was a conscious and I
knew that I existed and I didn’t know
why a sense of the absurd descended I
thought of all the people that I loved I
thought of all the joy all the happiness
all the pain all the beauty of this
thing called living what was the point
of it all if at the end of the day
you’re dead at that moment I remember
thinking why do we get to have all this
living all this learning all this
longing and laughing if at the end of
everyone’s existence is potentially
disturbed by this wandering but it’s the
philosopher who becomes conscious of it
the search for meaning can show itself
in a myriad of forms from a desperate
attempt to fill the void to stay forever
young to numb the loneliness to make it
to the top the cause of the disturbance
may never make it to consciousness but
the inner unrest is still there
celebrating the end of terms exams a
group of us went to a nightcap
the place was packed as they say the
joint was jumpin the noise was deafening
and the floor was the size of a staff
this middle-aged guy nudged up to me a
hairy chest medallions glistening well
armed as he rocked and he shouted and he
screamed something about love how he was
there every night I remember thinking
I’m in hell looking back his search for
meaning was the same as mine it just
manifested itself differently Plato
described this search for meaning as a
movement at turning and a being turned
in his allegory of the cave
he tells a story of a group of prisoners
change since childhood to face the back
wall of a cave behind them and between
them and the mouth of the cave there’s a
fire by whose light shadows from the
real world outside are cast onto the
back wall and these guys are so
accustomed to being there that they
think that this is real imagine says
Plato if one of them were disturbed
drawn by an unknown force moved by an
inner compulsion to turn around to
remove his shackles and to make his way
to the mouth of the cave imagine how the
sunlight would hurt his eyes imagine his
the movement of turning and of being
turned just what happened to leave when
I was 17 it was awaking up to the
mystery of existence as seeing for the
first time it can be painful but once it
happens there’s no going back
life before is different and the search
for what is real begins
since that time I’ve come to discover
that really what I was involved in was
the question that questions questioning
itself we don’t ask questions about the
known and we don’t ask questions about
the unknown we only ask questions about
that in between territory of the known
unknown in other words we don’t know
enough about it to relegate it to the
category of the known but neither isn’t
entirely unknown for if it were it
wouldn’t be the subject of our inquiry
since then I’ve come to realize four
basic truths the first that our chances
of being here are really really slim
imagine the moment of your own
conception don’t think of your parents
having sex just your own conception
every sperm and every egg is genetically
unique your mother produced about a
hundred thousand eggs in her lifetime
and of those that are related only one
had your specific genetic code half of
your code the other half of your unique
code was embedded in one of the 12
trillion sperm that your father produced
in his lifetime now what are the chances
of one on a hundred thousand meeting a
specific one and twelve trillion they’re
pretty slim but on the night in question
or the morning or whenever it was that
one little sperm with your name on it
swam like crazy and made it to that one
little egg and you came to be had the
swimmer who came second come first
someone else entirely different would
have been born so the chances of your
being here are slim and you made it I
also realized that if we’re not careful
we could sleep walk our way through
existence I remember having this
experience at 17 and telling an aunt of
mine about it and she said to me don’t
worry you’ll grow out of it I didn’t
want to grow out of it I was so excited
by the sheer joy that I existed I
remember cycling home from college and
seeing drivers in their cars and traffic
jams bored looks on their faces and
strumming under steering wheels and I
wanted to tap on their windows and say
wake up
she doesn’t realize that when all the
probabilities are put together the
chances of your being here are 1 in 400
trillion and you’ve made it
you’ve got to her this chance of a
lifetime I also discovered that our
existence is lived out in the in-between
between birth and death between good and
evil joy and sorrow light and darkness
we don’t know everything but we know
some things
we have a capacity for great good and
for evil we get to experience
extraordinary moments of light and we
can be plunged into darkness we get
glimpses of pure joy and of immense
suffering we get to live in this
in-between two pools we get informations
from each ends of the spectrum and we
get to choose our fundamental
orientation in relation to each finding
it I learned that we could be down to
our last few quid these warm hands that
you feel they will turn cold your soft
flesh it will go rigid focusing upon the
brevity of your stint on the planet and
of your imminent departure brings a
certain clarity even a joy you get to
savor the moments to live each one
deliberately if you won the lottery
tomorrow you might squander quite a bit
but as we got down to your last 30
ground you might be a bit more careful
we don’t get 30,000 days a lifetime can
be anything from a couple of hours to
around 29 grams worth of days if you
have 30 years left
you’re coming close to your last 10
grand for all I know I could be down to
my last fiber and so could you
that being so how are you going to spend
what’s left in your allowance I have
three suggestions be yourself since
you’re genetically unique here against
the odds and won’t be around for very
long be yourself your most courageous
self I got to spend part of my allowance
as a judge on the European Court of
Human Rights it was a privilege and I
learned a lot I learned that the past is
very near and that the Second World War
happened only yesterday I learned that
the violations that occurred in the past
are recurring again on our watch and I
learned that it’s when I practice my
capacity for courage so I can contribute
to positive change courage says Nelson
Mandela it’s not the absence of fear
it’s the triumph over it when courage
comes calling it usually invites you to
step outside standing alone on nerves us
it tend to knock on my door around the
remember colleagues something slightly
different from me
now adhering to legal principle and is
very important for the sake of legal
clarity but as I say on this particular
issue of the rights of vulnerable
minorities I tended to see things a
little differently from some of my
colleagues at least part of the time I
remember my rising heart rate just
before the vote in a particular case I
was looking at my colleagues faces were
they thinking here she goes again as I
raised a soul hand against the majority
to their credit they were following
precedent but a person’s life was at
stake a young mother who was HIV
positive was about to be deported with
her three children to a country where
she would no longer have access to the
antiretroviral medication that she
what does wonder follow the precedent
the precedent case in which that person
had died after her expulsion again for
want of access to the medication she
needed or step aside and be in a
minority of one penning the strongest
decision the strongest dissent I have
ever written I argued that a more humane
application of the legal principles was
required as a matter of urgency to
prevent this woman’s death I was
sounding metaphorical alarm bells and
hoping that someone would hear someone
did the case was referred to the grand
chamber the respondent state conceded
the woman was permitted to remain
thankfully the system worked the heart
the rising heart rate the stepping aside
the being in a minority of one was worth
it because in some small way it
contributed to the overall outcome being
who you are standing for what you
believe is right even if you’re standing
alone is one way in which you might
spend part of your remaining allowance
another suggestion is that you find your
own power
Doherty said that the darkest places in
hell are reserved for those who maintain
the neutrality in times of moral crisis
a humanitarian disaster the magnitude of
which is not been seen since the ending
of the second world war is unfolding on
our watch we see people dragged from
drowning waters little boys bodies
washed up on beaches we hear talk of
refugees but there’s an amazing lack of
leadership an unwillingness to give
practical effect to the internationally
recognized rights of these people it’s
not enough to pull them out of the water
they need another escape route
an alternative to the traffickers sports
a safe and illegal exit out of the
nightmare is something that every
European state could provide it’s called
a humanitarian visa issued at the
country of embarkation it would enable
those seeking to flee to travel safely
to lodge their claim for asylum and to
have it assessed it’s eminently doable
but it’s not being done overwhelmed by a
sense of powerlessness in the face of so
much suffering or desensitized to the
whole thing we can be tempted to go back
into the cave what after all can we do
it’s amazing how powerful small gestures
can be forming a friendship with one
Syrian family we discover that refugees
they’re just like us they’re us without
our homes they’re us without their
families they’re awesome the way they
love their children they’re us in the
breaking of their hearts absent
leadership absent moral leadership there
is something that you can do you can say
no to the neutrality you can deliver
your dissent if history teaches anything
it is that dissent can gather momentum
Rosa Parks John Hume Nelson Mandela
behind each of these game changers was a
whole group of people just like us who
supported them in their struggle
encourage them in their conviction who
defended their drive for justice if
you’re not a Mandela or a Martin Luther
King put your weight behind someone who
is and if it can’t find anybody maybe
it’s you who must lead
I never thought in terms of being a
leader said Jonghyun I thought very
simply in terms of helping people was
the little effort we can befriend the
foreigner we can register our descent
it’s a crime to remain silent
when we have a duty to speak we can’t
change the world but we can change one
person’s world and lastly we might
rarely to trumpet sound when momentous
decisions are being made destiny happens
silently seemingly small or mundane
decisions can have a major impact on
someone’s life I knew a woman deeply
deeply in grief having found her partner
following his suicide as she turned the
corner into our street one evening I
stopped roll down the window to say
hello we chatted for a while and ended
up having a meal together I never knew
until years later that as she turned the
corner that evening she had resolved to
end her own life once inside the door
her plans were the evening was
interrupted by the decision to stop and
to say hello before her death I asked an
aunt of mine what would you do and if
you had more time without hesitating
she said I’d help more people she told a
story an incident that had happened
earlier that week and she told it with
her sadness it was about how she and
another woman had sat chatting through
chemotherapy at the end of the session
and was driven the short distance to her
home this other lady took a blossom to
the city center and another bus to her
home in the country we should have given
her a lift
she’d had a hard day it was this as if
it had dawned on her that through in
attentiveness to the moment she had
missed the opportunity to make someone’s
life a bit easier and that moment was
gone as we enter the dying experience
our greatest regrets are our failures of
courage and our failures of kindness
every day we are presented with small
decisions that can have a major impact
on someone’s life through incidents as
small as stopping for a chat or sharing
a meal or offering a lift we can
literally change someone’s world when we
experience ourselves as existent we
discover that our specific humanity is
that of the questioner of the where from
and of where to of the ground and the
the loving search for wisdom is the life
of philosophy those who turn and are
turned they show us a fragment of our
fabulous world and glimpse of our
glorious selves is it not true that what
Copernicus and Galileo and Newton and
Einstein uncovered had always been there
they just pointed it out is it not true
that when Rumi or Shakespeare or the
castle or Michelangelo speak to us they
touch something within that already
exists something that resonates with
what we know to be true genuine
questioning precipitates learning and on
this ground we stand this is a place
where turnings happen where teachers are
mentors helping their students to see
what’s there to be seen and nudging them
to see a little farther on an evening
late in August in 1978 a tired and
hardworking Dublin bus driver came home
to a family route his truck ulam
teenager announced she was leaving
school he took a decision he absolutely
refused to permit it he resisted her
tearful please he ignored her heartful
comments
he stood his ground the decision he made
that night was linked in a chain of
cause and effect to a dissenting opinion
delivered by that once truculent
teenager as she sat on the world’s
largest International Court somewhere in
Europe
a young woman gets to be with her
children and has access to the
medication that she leads from her and
from me thanks dad
life is astonishing it is heartbreaking
it is beautiful and it is brief that is
hurry to love people they depart so
quickly thank you you