[Music]
[Applause]
hello my name is Brianna Clark and
growing up I was always known as the
sick kid it’s kind of a side effect of
having a chronic condition in my case of
chronic heart condition when I’m
sophomore year I got promoted and I
became the dying kid and this landed me
a position in a hospital bed at UCSF for
nearly a month and during this time I
had many visitors ranging from both
friends and family including my oldest
brother Lars now at the time Lars was
living in Boston going to grad school
and he’ll a lot on his plate so I really
wasn’t expecting him to come see me but
he called my mom to ask and see how I
was doing and he asked a question that
no mother ever deserves to hear about
her child and no brother deserves to ask
about her his younger sister is she
going to make it my mother could only
respond with I don’t know so he took the
first flight out to San Francisco to see
me for what could have been the last
time is she going to make it it’s such a
despairing question what he was really
asking with how much time does she have
left how much time does she have before
there’s no more time left to see her and
the quiet the answer of course would
have remained the same I don’t know
because none of us really know how much
time we have left but when we are faced
with death whether it be our own or of
someone close to us we become undeniably
aware of time but I found that this
isn’t a bad thing being aware of time
actually have a lot of benefits
including um being establishing a
healthy mindset establishing an identity
establishing morality and establishing
connection as far as establishing your
healthy mindset well if we want to know
what establishes a healthy mindset we
have to know what happens in the mind
and I have found an article that i read
that the past in the future only exists
in the mind and that this means that we
can be aware of what has happened in the
past and we can think of the
possibilities of the future but we can
never fully
focus on either of them because a part
of us will always be in the present so
it’s healthy to be aware of the past in
the future but it’s important to focus
on what’s happening in the here and now
so that we can fully fulfill the
capacity of every moment that we have
but the interesting thing that I found
in another article called death is that
the capacity to live and actually living
are two different things the capacity to
live is an opportunity a privilege that
we have as living beings to be alive
whereas living is a choice that we make
on a daily basis on a momentary basis to
take advantage of the moments we have it
is like a seed the capacity to live is
like a seed and if we leave it on the
shelf and never plant that seed never do
anything with that seed if we just let
the moments passed by that seed will
come to nothing but if we water it and
we nurture it that seed can grow and
spread um into something bigger and
something greater and by being aware of
our time we can also understand
ourselves better and other people better
which is why being aware of time
establishes identity I read a poem by
Walt Whitman called the song of myself
and in this poem Walt Whitman describes
all these things that he has material
things money fame fortune anything you
could want he has it and yet at the end
of all that he says these are not the me
myself you see Whitman didn’t define
himself by the nouns in his life because
his identity wasn’t found in a noun but
rather a verb to be he later describes
his mannerisms in the setting and he
uses verbs that are very significant
waiting watching wondering and these
verbs only show that he is in tune with
himself and with the world around him
but just because our identity when we
are aware of time can be found in a verb
does not mean that we are defined by the
doings and the happenings of our past
because if that were true that means
that I could define myself by my heart
condition which is something I’ve
actually struggled with for a very long
time going into high school for the
first year and a half I didn’t want
anybody to know that I had a heart
condition because I didn’t want to be
known as the sick kid anymore I did not
want to be defined by it and I am not
the only one who has felt like this I
read a book by John Green called The
Fault in Our Stars and it’s about cancer
patients I mean there’s this one scene
where a character named Augustus is
talking to the main character hazel and
he says hazel tell me her story and for
the second time she begins to tell him
her cancer story and he said he stops
her and he says no he’s illini here your
cancer story I’ve already heard it I
want to hear your story because he
understood that your story is not
defined that hazel was not defined by
what had happened to her but rather what
she did in life despite this thing
happening to her and that is how that’s
the beauty of living in the moment isn’t
realizing that every new moment is a
chance to do something different to do
something new to change if you want or
need 2 and 0 it reminds me of another
character that i read from a book called
tuesdays with morrie you see he saw a
life in a similar perspective of rather
than rather than why why why do all this
if you’re just going to die anyway he
posed the question of well if you’re
going to die anyway why not live while
you can um and the only way that he
really said to do this was through love
and that’s why he says that love is the
only rational act you see Maurice aw
love as this this thing that connects
people together because love is
something that lasts beyond time it’s
the only thing that we can do to defy
time time is this great entity that
binds us and that rules over us and the
only way to escape it is to do something
that lasts beyond
that and that is through love and
because we can be aware of our time
maurices that we can we have the
opportunity to love in fact he suggests
that we have the obligation to love and
that is why being aware of time
establishes morality um he says it’s not
the it’s not a negative that you know
you’re going to die brother the positive
it’s not the negative that you’re going
to die but the positive that you know
you’re going to die and you live a
better life because of it and to live
and to do that you need love and with
love comes connection which is why being
aware of time establishes connection
love reminds me quite much like a
fountain because when one person loves
another person that love is inspiring
and it spreads to other people and it
fills up and becomes this cascade this
this this chain reaction just like a
fountain and the overflow of love
reminds the living to keep being aware
of time and it keeps the Dead Alive
through the inspiration of love that
they have shown us when they were alive
and that is why those who we love never
truly leave us because they live on in
our hearts and in our memories through
the love that they have inspired within
us so if we are aware of time we can
choose to love with the life and the
time that we are given living for the
moment it’s not something that requires
a drastic change in life it’s the small
things for the most part for some that
could be leaving your phone in your
pocket during a face-to-face
conversation for others it could be not
to stress so much over the future for my
brother it was taking a week off to
visit his dying sister and as for me
well it’s here giving this talk stepping
out of my comfort zone taking full
advantage of this opportunity of this
moment thank you
[Applause] [Music]