Andromeda, Yogi Berra and the Meaning of Life

”… what science tells us is that we are but one among hundreds of millions of species that evolved over the course of three and a half billion years on one tiny planet among many orbiting an ordinary star, itself one of possibly billions of solar systems in an ordinary galaxy that contains hundreds of billions of stars, itself located in a cluster of galaxies not so different from millions of other galaxy clusters, whirling away from one another in an accelerating expanding cosmic bubble universe, that very possibly is only one among a near infinite number of bubble universes.”
~Michael Shermer

It seems that I have found yet another way to search for speeches in Google. I looked for "commencement speech" and "Yogi Berra" and got a ton or search results. The conclusion is obvious, the man is quoted a lot. I am still trying to find his original speech at St. Louis University. In the meantime, I though I came out empty handed tonight but then I found "The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything" the commencement speech from May 23, 2008 by Dr. Michael Shermer. I am not going to post it on the Graduation Wisdom site but it definitely has a few things going for it. It's the first graduation speech I read that helps putting things in perspective by talking about the sky and the Universe - one of my favorite ways to forget about problems and all. Here are his words:

”I am deeply moved, for example, when I observe through my eight-inch telescope in my backyard the fuzzy little patch of light that is the Andromeda galaxy. It is not just because it is lovely, but because I also understand that the photons of light landing on my retina left Andromeda 3 million years ago, when our ancestors were tiny-brained hominids roaming the plains of Africa.”

The pic is Andromeda, as found at the Astronomy Picture of the Day –a great site I first heard of back in 1999, can’t believe they still keep posting a picture every day - not that they'll ever run out of stars or galaxies to feature. It's a good habit to start your day, from time to time, by looking at a picture from the Universe and give it a moment to pause over.

Finally, here is the Yogi Berra quote that made this little discovery possible...

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice, there is."