Ben+O’s+Final+AmEx+2015+Speech


 * Title of Speech **

Finite Infinities.


 * Text of Speech **

When we talk about numbers, we refer to them as either small or large depending on the other numbers that they’re being compared to. For instance, one hundred is a large number when compared to a number like one. But when compared to a number like one million, it suddenly becomes tiny. And one million becomes tiny when compared to a number like one billion, and so on and so forth. But, there is one number that will always be larger than any other. That number is infinity. Nothing can be larger in comparison to it because it never ends. It is the largest possible number... right? Here’s a question: how many numbers are there in between one and five? If you’re counting one and five, then it would appear to be five, if you aren’t, it would be three (two, three, and four). But in actuality, both of these answers are incorrect. In actuality, there are an infinite amount of numbers between one and five. In fact, there are an infinite amount of numbers between one and two, or even zero and one. There’s .1, and .11, and .111, and .1111121, and so on into infinity. So, if infinity is the largest possible number, then why is it smaller than one? Well, it’s because infinity isn’t actually a number, it’s an abstract concept; it doesn’t have a specific value, like most other numbers do. It can be larger than any other number, but it can also be smaller than a number as small as one. See, there are different types of infinity. Some of them are truly infinite, they have no bounds whatsoever. But some of them are finite enough to fit in between the bounds of zero and one.

We, humans, only exist for a finite amount of time. We have a beginning - when we’re born - and, eventually, an end. The amount of time in between that beginning and end is finite, we can measure or count it. At least, that’s what we believe to be true, but can we say so for certain? If there are an infinite amount of numbers between zero and one, doesn’t that mean that there is an infinite amount of time between one second to the next? We can break a second apart into one thousand segments, called milliseconds. This begs the question, can’t we break a millisecond into one thousand segments, and then break that segment into one thousand more, and keep repeating this process an infinite amount of times? This would mean that we live for an infinite amount of time. This seems totally illogical, considering we have proof that our existence is finite, (death). But maybe, we are just thinking about the wrong kind of infinity. There is a finitely infinite amount of numbers between zero and one. There is also a finitely infinite amount of time in our lives.

Extremely finite in fact. If you were to take the total amount of time from the beginning of the Earth’s formation until now, and scale it down to a twenty four hour period, humans would have been around for only one mere second. Subsequently, if you were to scale the existence of humans down to a twenty four hour period, the birth of Jesus - something we consider to be ancient - would have been only fourteen minutes ago. So where does that put us? Our lives only take up an insignificantly small speck in the scope of time. We exist for less than a metaphorical second. For some people, this realization makes them feel hopelessly small, and scared. It can cause them to feel like our existence, our lives, are futile, that nothing we do will be of any importance in the wider scope of things, so everything we do is pointless. But these people are misled, misguided in their assumptions that our lives are meaningless. They understand the concept that we only exist for a finite period of time, but what they fail to realize is how infinite that period actually is.

In the America - or more appropriately - the world that I grow up in, I want to see more people embracing that concept. I want to see more people taking advantage of the fact that they have all of infinity to live out their lives. I want to stop seeing people who are so concerned with the finite nature of life that they end up wasting it on some monotonous routine in order to “make a living” rather than enjoying it in it’s entirety. I want to see a people who spend their lives actively living, instead of just idly waiting for it to expire. If we are only around for a second, why not make that second count? In the world I grow up in, I don’t want to see people who are so afraid of death that they let it prevent them from living, I want to see people who understand that between life and death stands infinity. I want to see people who aren’t afraid of death, but more importantly, aren’t afraid to live. In the world I grow up in, I want to see a people who gladly, and warmly welcome their own, individual finite infinities.

END


 * Cite your sources **

http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/08/putting-time-in-perspective.html (for the fact about scaling the existence of the earth down to twenty four hours)