my TEDx talk tonight here on uncertainty
I think I must be experts in the field
because as I was preparing for this talk
I tried to list all the things that I
was absolutely certain of and it was a
very short list as a matter of fact
there’s only a couple items on that list
and we share one of those items as a
matter of fact we’re all in different
paths right now leading to different
roads we’re all going to the same place
and that same place is right here all
headed this cemetery now if we accept
the fact that our all of our paths are
eventually leading there the reality is
that every minute of our lives matter
and we want to fill those mud minutes
with something that’s truly
extraordinary now while we may accept
this please do me a favor and your
neighbor a favor and please don’t die
within the next 18 minutes because it
could get very messy and I could never
live down the headline tedxtalk kills in
Hong Kong literally but if we do accept
the fact that this is where we’re all
headed then we go ahead and take a good
look at the present where we are now
because in reality most of us don’t know
how long the path is between right now
and right there although we’re all
winding up right there however there are
people who do know people may have been
diagnosed with the serious illness or
people who are faced with tragic
circumstances we wake up every day with
a certainty that this is in our future
but we don’t think about that we think
about though is the general routines we
we do expect to wake up fresh in the
morning we do expect when we turn the
switch for the power to come on we do
expect we turn the faucet that the water
comes we go to the MTR station that the
Train shows up and for those of us those
of us who might be traveling by air we
strap ourselves in we listen to flight
attendant and we expect to be able to
get to our destination safely but you
know that does
always happen as a matter of fact in
January 13th 1982 75 passengers strapped
themselves into the seats of air Florida
flight 90 they’re getting ready to leave
Washington National Airport United
States headed towards Fort Lauderdale
Florida and that eventually Fort
Lauderdale Florida
it was desperately cold in Washington DC
that day it had been snowing it been
icing and I’m sure those 75 passengers
and crew were looking for a little
respite in sunny Florida in the
beginning of January
unfortunately they wouldn’t make it as
air Florida flight 90 was taxing off the
runway unfortunately the pilots had not
properly de-ice the wings and in him
moments of Terror what it seemed like
certainty or at least an expectation of
safety was quickly turned upside down
as the airplane clipped the 17th the
14th Street Bridge damaging seven
vehicles killing four people and landing
in the Potomac River two miles from the
White House now where air Florida flight
90 landed in the middle of the Potomac
was too difficult to be reached by land
so people that the passer the passers-by
and those willing to help had to wait
for the force service to arrive by
helicopter when the Forest Service
arrived by helicopter they noticed that
there were passengers that had crawled
out of the back of the aircraft there
were six passengers in total they could
count and as the helicopter came in
closer they could see that there
appeared to be one man who was in charge
a balding man with a big moustache and
what was happening was they could see
that he was somehow organizing the
people as they’re coming out of a back
of the aircraft well as the helicopter
lowered itself with its lifeline which
by the way is very dangerous in stormy
weather they passed that lifeline to the
man who seemed to be in charge as
balding man and a mustache expecting him
to grab the lifeline and come
with them but he didn’t he passed the
Lifeline to yet another passenger this
time a flight attendant you can see it
from this photograph here the action
taking place in that descent that
January day well the first person who
was rescued was a flight attendant and
she was taken safely to the bank meant
the helicopter came back with a lifeline
and again passed it to the man in the
water for him to go ahead and reach for
him to come and join in the banquet but
no he passed the line lifeline again to
get another passenger so a second person
is taken from the wreckage to the safety
of the bank the third time the
helicopter comes back again the man in
the water passes the lifeline to another
passenger it happens a fourth times and
it happens a fifth time five people are
rescued there aren’t safe ground the
helicopter returns for the man who had
been say who had risked his life for
everyone else
only discover that he must have
succumbed to hypothermia because he had
drowned and he had disappeared from
sight
now we watched this we’d the world watch
this on television and there is a
magazine called Time magazine and their
editor of the chief at that time Roger
Rosenblatt wrote a very powerful essay
called the man in the water and what was
so powerful about that essay is he was
able to capture for us why this man held
our attention
first of all it was absolutely sheer
poetry the idea of man versus nature
that man had no power over nature he had
no power over the fate of that aircraft
but he did have power to give his life
for others and not just one but five
people also what was powerful we didn’t
know for a very long time who this man
was
so his anonymity made him famous but
what most made him famous was his
sacrifice
he provided a lifeline to those
survivors but he also provide a lifeline
for all of us because his professor Chen
was mentioning earlier the veil behind
uncertainty is fear and unfortunately
fear can keep us from doing taking the
risks that we need to do reaching out to
do the things that were called to do and
this man faced his uncertainty the
certainty that he must have known if he
kept passing that lifeline that he
wouldn’t survive but yet he continued to
do so he faced uncertainty with
sacrifice and he faced uncertainty with
the ability to go ahead and give his
life for others if you find yourself in
Washington DC and you’re driving around
you’ll find that the 14th Street Bridge
has been renamed it’s now called the
Arland D Williams jr. bridge and when if
you passed that you can tell your
friends and your car you because it
wasn’t a present United States but he
was the man in the water and you can
tell his story there’s an area of
psychology you’re probably familiar with
and you may have studied it yourself if
you’re a psychology major and one of the
anxiety disorders known as
post-traumatic stress a lot of research
has been done on PTSD first of all by
veterans from war and then other people
who have been survivors of accidents
like a plane crash some kind of
traumatic event but I’m most interested
in a new area developing from this area
of research called post-traumatic growth
the growth that occurs in some people as
a result of a traumatic event I don’t
think there’s anything more traumatic in
the life of anybody than the death of a
child and there the growth that can come
from that can be phenomenal there’s a
story of a family that Huffington Post
is written about fairly recently it
traveled through the internet and
Huffington Post want to find out what’s
the real story behind this because
almost too good to be true so they went
ahead and interviewed all the major
players there was a woman
26 years old single five year old son
who was ill she took him to a hospital
in Phoenix Arizona only to find out that
he had leukemia terminal leukemia she
didn’t really know what to do but she
developed a very close relationship with
the oncologist who was treating her son
Bob see his full name is Frank Salazar
but she called him Bob see the doctor
had been very close with another family
a woman who lost her seven-year-old son
to leukemia very recently but she and a
group of police officers who had made
their son her son’s life very special
towards the end it started a new charity
a new foundation they wanted to go ahead
and do to go ahead and raise awareness
for children who were suffering in the
last moments of life they wanted to make
their moments count they wanted to make
their wishes come true and they started
a charity called Make A Wish Foundation
what you’ve probably heard about because
they such the lives of many terminal
children around the world
Bob C was the very first make-a-wish
Foundation recipient and the way it
worked is the doctor told Bob sees mom
about this Bob his mom contacted the
make-a-wish people the police officer
were not an interviewed Bob C and said
if you had to wish what would you wish
to come true his first wish was to take
a balloon ride hot-air balloon ride
second wish was to go ahead and go to
Disneyland third wish well he wanted to
become a fireman when he grew up well
the police officer could easily take
care of the first two if they’re with a
fledgling foundation don’t know if you
realize but Arizona is home to hot air
ballooning particularly first thing in
the morning the nature of a the climate
there that was easy a trip to Disneyland
no problem it’s a matter of fact it set
up a long-standing relationship between
the Disney parks and the Make A Wish
Foundation because you can imagine a
trip to Disney’s on the wish of many
children’s wish list let alone those are
very
but lastly that trip to making him a
fireman would take a little bit more
work so his mother contacted the Phoenix
Fire Department unfortunately she got in
touch to the fellow named fireman Bob
fireman Bob you see pictured there she
told fireman Bob this story that her son
was desperately ill that he didn’t have
long to live but he’d always wished to
be a firefighter
which would he mind if she took his son
her son out for a ride in a fire truck
so he’d have that experience
fireman’s Bob’s response was epic he
said whoa we didn’t do better than that
you send me his sizes we can actually
have a real fireman’s hat a real
fireman’s jacket a badge and boots
because they’re all made here in Phoenix
let’s do this right so several weeks
later the appointed time arrives and
there’s five-year-old Bob see getting on
his Phoenix firemen department uniform
and spends in a day going out with it
with the Phoenix Fire Department it’s
going to rescue calls and being part of
the team the top Hartmann didn’t end
there they continued connection with
that family through the extra months the
Bobbsey lived it was a surprise to
everyone however when the end became
inevitable the hospital notified that
the the fire the firefighters that if
they wanted to come see Bob see for one
last time they better do so now and they
inform the hospital they’d be on their
way but for not for anyone to panic if
they see the truck coming
so firetruck peels out parks outside of
Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix they
raise the fire ladder to Bob C’s
third-floor window and Captain Bob
fireman Bob and free of his colleagues
climbed that ladder bang on Bob his
window Bob sees elated shocked that
they’re there and they climbed through
the ladder to his room to be with him
he’s so moved by they see his mommy let
me go down and see them at the truck let
me see my team well they went down there
to see the team and as they exit Saint
Joseph’s Hospital they see the fire
engine has been renamed the new name for
the fire
truck is b14 Bob see one Bob C turned to
firemen Bob and said am i a real fireman
now and Bob said to him well of course
you are Bob see Bob C died the next day
in the arm the loving arms of his mother
his grandmother and his aunt but that
boy’s last life those last few months of
that boy’s life was filled with more
love more attention than he could have
ever imagined and certainly more than
his mother could have ever planned for
they faced the certainty of his death
with the joy of being able to fill it
with as much love and joy as they
possibly could not just his mother but
fireman Bob and the make-a-wish
foundation founders and their very first
recipient who they didn’t make to make
the choose a wish but instead granted
them all their uncertainty was faced
with love and embraced the absolute
everything they had for him but
post-traumatic growth can come in many
other ways and many other and many other
dimensions and not everybody who faces
tragedy has a loving supportive family
or friends around them one of the
positions that I’ve held as an educator
before I came to Hong Kong was I was a
teacher for the homeless I worked
homeless children in youth one of the
last students I work with in that
position let’s call him for privacy sake
Robert Roberts 15 years old when he came
in the shelter with his mother they’d
spent the last year-and-a-half living
out of the back of their car in Madeira
Beach Florida they come to the homeless
shelter only because his mother was ill
and my job was to get Robert into school
as it was all our homeless children and
youth well we get Robert into school but
just as he’s getting settled in school
his mother is quickly hospitalized and
unfortunately and surprising to all of
us she died not long afterwards I had to
deliver the message to Robert that his
mother died and I had to take him up the
shelter right away to clear out the room
that they shared because the shelter
staff needed it back we went back to the
shelter we cleared it out all the thing
all the shelter had were some big black
garbage bags
rubbish bags for him to fill up with
there were no suitcases nothing there
there wasn’t much for him to have to
fill up having spent the last year and a
half in the back of a car but he put
together what few items that he had his
personal items he donated all his
mother’s clothes and her things to the
shelter he did however save one small
bottle of department store perfume so he
could remember her fragrance in better
days but as we left there he said what
am I gonna do now
as they took that 45-minute journey from
the homeless shelter to where I was
gonna have to take him now to a foster
home it suddenly dawned on me that I’d
work with a lot of different families
I’d work with great families I’d work
with good families I work with bad
families violent families abusive
families but I had never dealt with
anyone or had a child who was so totally
alone there was literally no family
willing or able to take him in there was
no one who’s going to take him out for
dinner there was no one to go to the
cinema with there was no one to
celebrate his birthday there was
literally nobody in this boy’s life we
took him back to the homeless shelter
and he unfortunately was stuck in that
in that chasm where he was too old
really for foster care but too young for
transitional care that you would find
were 18 year olds and above I followed
up in the next several months as he was
in these various foster homes on a 16th
birthday fortunately with the great work
of our local social workers and the
Department of Children families they
were able to get him into a transitional
housing when I tucked him in so to speak
in his in his new flat getting him set
up moving at the last of the things
would be the last time I would see him
face to face he turned to me and said
you know I can do this
I really have hope that things are gonna
get better well he said that with a
smile and I broke down as soon as I left
his apartment because I had never met
anybody who had such faith and hope in
the future with so little reason to do
so there was nobody else in this boy’s
life but he was
not gonna let that defeat him which
leads me if we could move to the next
slide there’s a 13th century Persian
poet by the name of Rumi who you’ve
probably come across we had talked that
one of the one of the paralyzing pieces
behind uncertainty is this idea of fear
but this quote fear knocked on the door
love answered and no one was there it’s
a pretty powerful vision for us when we
think about fear as being part of
uncertainty because what I’ve also
discovered yeah there’s a certainty of
death but the other certainty that we
know we can live with is that love does
in fact dissolve and dissipate fear love
is the uniting force that binds us
together and reveals our deepest
humanity I’ve learned that through these
stories I’ve learned this face to face
and I leave that here with you today thank you very much