John's Speech at Windstar's "Choices For The Future Symposium" Aspen, Colorado - September 1995 ============================================================== John Denver: Thank you very much. I have the same glasses and am very, very happy to have this opportunity to share a few thoughts with you this morning. This was unexpected! I only found out about this last night and am very happy to do it, although I should tell you that the only course I ever failed in my life was a course in college on extemporaneous speaking! So, uh, somehow that just kept popping up through the night as I lay awake trying to think what it is, given this incredible opportunity, that I would like to share with you and I think that is does have to do with Choices in Action. I hope that by my presence here, I can express to you Choices in Action. I hope that what I have to say is an expression of that and I'm sure that there will be other expressions that you will experience not only from each other, but certainly from me through the course of these three days. When we were up on the mountain for our brunch, Jay talked about the glorious day that we had and said we didn't choose that. And the chance that I had for a few remarks, I disagreed with him. I believe that we did chose this day, that we in fact together and with a whole lot of people who aren't here obviously, and who may not even know that we're here, we did create this day. And I would propose to you that by our choice, by our simple, willful choice, that were it not as bright as it is out there, that it could still be that bright in here, in each of our hearts if we were to chose to make it so. And certainly we have a lot of help - a lot of support in that area today with the day we have been given. I have a little story. What kind of August have you had? What kind of year have you had? And most especially August? August has been hell for me (laughter/applause) for about 7 or 8 years (more laughter) and it all came to a head for me about a week ago and I really wondered whether I was gonna make it here again. I was reminded of a story that a friend of mine told us on the road about three guys who I think were with National Geographic. They were off in some dark part of Africa or someplace on an expedition and they were captured by what they thought or had been told would possibly be head-hunters or cannibals. And these three guys were scared to death and they were staked up to three stakes in the center of this village. Around them were 50-100 people with bones in their nose, spears and all kinds of things working themselves up into a frenzy and these guys were scared to death. All of a sudden it grew quiet and the Chief stepped forward and he went up to the first guy and he said, "you wish death-you wish Magumba?" And the guy said, "I don't want to die - I don't know what Magumba is, but I don't want to die - I choose Magumba." And the Chief said "Magumba!" at which point some guys step forward, cut him off of the stake, they picked him up over their heads, they dragged him off. This guy started screaming, the other two couldn't see him and he was goin' in the crowd. There was dust bein' raised - I mean it sounded like they were doing unspeakable, terrible things to this poor fellow. And as the screams got quieter and quieter, everything else got louder and louder and they couldn't imagine what was going on until pretty soon it got all quiet again. The Chief stepped up to the second guy - "you wish death - you wish Magumba?" "The poor guy's - God, I don't know what happened, but I don't want to die. I don't know what to do - Magumba." And the Chief said "Magumba!" Same thing - terrible unspeakable things were obviously happening to this poor fellow. Got quiet again - Chief stepped up to the third guy - "you wish death - you wish Magumba?" Guy said, "I ain't afraid of dyin' - I ain't afraid of Magumba - But I choose death." The Chief said, "Ah, very good choice, but first Magumba! "So it occurred to me sometime this weekend, this past weekend, as I was really in as deep, and dark a place as I think I've ever been, when I've been told, and when I can feel that all kinds of really wonderful things are starting to happen in my life - that I've taken a wonderful step in my life, for myself. That wonderful things are happening showing up out there in my business, they haven't come to fruition yet, but I can see all of this stuff happening and yet here I am. I can't tell you all the stuff that's going on this month of August. And it occurred to me that God was saying, "John, wonderful things gonna happen for you boy - but first ....! " So I wanted to share that with you in case the same thing was going on in your life you can add a little levity to the situation and for all of us here this weekend, when speakers, out of whatever circumstances are not able to show up or something goes wrong. I know, and I feel deeply in my heart and I also feel by the attendance as Jay mentioned that's here this week there are wonderful things in store for the family of Windstar - but first MAGUMBA! So, a part of what that has taught me this weekend is about acting and reacting. And one of the lessons I've learned over this past year that I wanted to at least in part share with you is I've learned I've spent most of my life playing a victim. I know when I'm doing that because I really don't like myself very much and I really find that I'm pretty upset, generally angry at somebody and it shows in every way that you can imagine. I believe that it comes from playing a victim - from reacting. So one of the choices that I have made, a conscious choice - not an educated choice which assumes a certain kind of response I think, but a very conscious and willful action on how I want to be in the world. I no longer want to be the victim. I will no longer be a victim (applause). My assistant, Stephanie Ryan, sent me this wonderful thing a couple of days ago. I guess it was actually Monday when I got home and she knew the kind of weekend I was having last week. And she sent me this from the Chicago Daily News dated February 5, 1960 by a fellow named Sydney J. Harris: I walked with my friend to the newsstand the other night and he bought a paper, thanking the newsboy politely. The newsboy didn't even acknowledge him. "A sullen fellow, isn't he?", I commented. "Oh, he's that way every night," shrugged my friend. "Then why do you continue to be so polite to him?", I asked. "Why not?", inquired my friend. "Why should I let him decide how I'm going to act?" As I thought about this incident later it occurred to me that the important word was "act". My friend "acts" toward people - most of us react toward them. He has a sense of inner balance which is lacking in most of us - he knows who he is, what he stands for, how he should behave. He refuses to return incivility for incivility because then he would no longer be in command of his own conduct. When we are enjoined in the Bible to return good for evil, we look upon this as a moral injunction - which it is. But it is also a psychological prescription for our own emotional health. Nobody is unhappier than the perpetual reactor. His center of emotional gravity is not rooted within himself where it belongs, but in the world outside him. His spiritual temperature is always being raised or lowered by the social climate around him and he is a mere creature at the mercy of these elements. Praise gives him a feeling of euphoria which is false because it does not last and it does not come from self-approval. Criticism depresses him more than it should because it confirms his own secretly shaky opinion of himself. Snubs hurt him and the mere suspicion of unpopularity in any quarter arouses him to bitterness. A serenity of spirit cannot be achieved until we become the masters of our own actions and attitudes. To let another determine whether we shall be rude or gracious, elated or depressed is to relinquish control over our own personalities which is ultimately all we possess. The only true possession is self-possession. That blew me away. You know, that's exactly the little lesson that I had learned, I think, over the weekend, and I'd been trying to learn over this past year. And I forget - doggone it, sometimes I forget and it's the funniest thing that will come up and remind me and I can say, oh, I forgot. When we talk about making conscious choices, then I want you all to really underline for yourself it doesn't have only to do with the things that we often talk about here at Windstar, you know. They way we cast our vote, the way we spend our money, the things we teach our children, the things that we put forward in our own lives. It can have to do with much more subtle levels of being, and that you can in fact be who you are. that not only is OK, it is what is most desired. And in that is the greatest opportunity that you will have to make a difference - that's the only difference you can make. There's nobody else but you that can make that difference. I remember back in the late 60's when we were talking about wanting to make a difference in the world and how individuals could make a difference. And I know how much that permeates something that I'm so very passionate about which is the environmental movement and saving our planet, saving our future. I've often thought that you make a difference anyway. You can't help but make a difference. You make a difference by what you do. You make a difference sometimes by what you don't do. And that the opportunity that is there for all of us is to make the difference that we consciously, willfully, wish to make. And that it can truly show up in every aspect of your life and that it can do so in a way that takes all the weight off. There's nothing that you have to do - just be yourself. Another little story that I think underlines this - Tom Crum - my dear friend Tom, who in my absence last year stepped forward and took my place suggested that I might do the same for him. I hope that I don't have to do so to quite the extent that he did for me last year. But one thing that I can do is share one of Tom's little monk stories with you. This has to do with a monk and a Samurai Warrior. Little monk sitting on the side of a mountain very calm, wonderful, sitting there - little bald .... can you see Tom in about 20-30 years, little bald head, same bright blue eyes, same smile, sorta like Al Huang, parchment like skin - clear, beautiful, sitting there ... and this Samurai Warrior comes up. He's got his sword out and his long hair, and he's got armor and all kinds of stuff. I mean he comes up and he's got an attitude! He comes up to this monk, stamps his sword into the ground and says "I want to know the difference between heaven and hell!" And the monk, in this quiet little voice starts to belittle this man in ways you can only imagine. He says, "who do you think that you are to deserve any answer from me about any question that you might be so presumptions as to think you could ask?" He starts goin' at this guy in a way that totally is negating him in a sense. And as the monk, in his little quite voice continues to talk, this guy gets redder and redder in the face and stiffer and stiffer and angrier and angrier and it's all comin' out and pretty soon he grabs up the sword and raises like this to strike the guy and the monk says, "that is hell!" The guy, all of a sudden has this flash of realization that how true what the monk has said is, that he has created out of this simple man in his response to a question himself being in hell. As he realizes that, as his sword slowly comes down, his face softens, tears start pouring out of his eyes and the monk says "that is heaven." So, I've been creating a hell for myself - off and on for a long time. I'd like to publicly apologize to any of you who I've dragged into my little world of hell and I promise to you that I will make every effort - in fact, more than every effort, it won't happen again. (Applause). We create our own lives. We create the world that we want to live in. The environment of our own experience and our own expression of ourselves is our creation, no one elses. I would like to share a few things with you that I thought of that WE out of being who we are, out of having this notion of a thing called Windstar creating that back in 1976. And out of creating in our own lives the thought that perhaps we could make a difference and having a sense of what kind of difference we wanted to make in the world - let me tell you a part of what we have created.One thing has to do with another organization that I am considered to be a co-founder of, w hich is an honor that I don't deserve I believe, except that perhaps I was the first volunteer - The Hunger Project. The Hunger Project says that we wanted to create the end of hunger as an idea whose time had come and that it was our commitment to end hunger on this planet by the year 2000. We got laughed at a lot. I sort of fell away from the Hunger Project. I got more focused on Windstar and the environment - not out of my lack of commitment or belief in the Hunger Project and what we're doing. It's perhaps more accurate to say I felt that where I can best serve the Hunger Project is working to save the environment. If you're workin' on the Hunger Project, you're workin' for a sustainable future and a healthy environment and vice versa and a whole lot of other things that we can bring into that. One of the things the Hunger Project came up with, Dr. Roy Prosterman figured out we have no way to judge hunger in the world. We have really no way to judge hunger as a societal issue. And what he came forward with is what's called the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR). This, my friends, since 1976 has become the way that we measure hunger as a societal issue in all societies all over the world. At the time this was brought forward, what the IMR is has to do with the number of infant deaths in the first year of life per 1,000 births. You get that? In the first year of life, the number of children out of 1000 who die. The highest rate at that time was in a country called Ricinafasso which I visited where the IMR was 212. In the US at that time, I think it was about 13. It may be 17 now, folks, here in our country. In any case, at that time, late 1976-77, the average IMR around the world -- oh, and we also said, excuse me -- that when it falls below 50, when it falls below 50 that we can pretty assuredly say, and this is accepted now, without exception around the world, when it falls below 50 we can say that hunger has been handled as a societal issue in that country. So the US was 13, we weren't the best in the world by the way. The highest was 212 - Ricinafasso. The average around the world was 160 something - 167 is what's in my mind - I'm not sure that's exactly right but well beyond 50. Do you know what it is today in 1995? 63! (Applause) 63! That may not be accurate it may be the other way around 163 & 67, but folks, how close to that magic number of 50 are we? And if we can look at the very real possibility, in fact the probability I propose to you, that we are going to end hunger as a societal issue around the world by the year 2000. Imagine that? Imagine what it might do to the human spirit to know that we have conquered hunger as a world wide societal issue? What an incredible thing. And I believe it came out of some people who made a commitment that we will make the end of hunger an idea whose time has come and we will commit ourselves to that endeavor. So at the same time, over here, we were creating Windstar and we wanted to be a catalyst for people to make responsible choices for a sustainable future and a healthy environment. Now around that commitment, around just that consciousness in the minds and hearts and spirits of a few people, were not nearly as large as the Hunger Project. Let me tell you some things that have happened in our world. I'll remind you of some things that came to my mind about 4 o'clock this morning! The Berlin Wall is gone. Russia - The Cold War is over. Back in 1988 I think it was, I had a chance to fly to Muir, the Soviet Space Station. That didn't work out, but this year there is a very open, very productive, very promising cooperation between the US and the Soviet Union as was expressed by a flight earlier this year - an American astronaut with 2 soviet cosmonauts in the Muir space station. I remember a story. Did you ever hear of the flood in this town? Big flood! All of the people sittin' up on the side of the hill standin' there lookin' down at the flood and everything. And there's this one place down here where they see this hat seemingly floating down stream and then this hat turns around and goes the other way. And they watch that for a minute and people are beginning to wonder. They're pointing it out to one another - what do you suppose that is? And this little kid pipes up and says, "I don't know, but my dad said come hell or high water he was gonna mow the lawn today!" (Laughter/applause) So haven't you heard somebody say something about - yeah, I'll do that or I'll believe that you'll do that when they're not fighting' in Northern Ireland. Can't say that anymore. I believe you'll do that, I believe I'll do that - whatever, whatever - when there's peace in the Middle East. Can't say that anymore. That doesn't mean that terrorist activity isn't going on even here in our own country. It doesn't mean that there are civil strifes going on between peoples even in our own country. But there's not a war going on in the world. You wouldn't say that here in the US we are at war. So maybe even though there will still be much to do in regard to this issue of hunger, that people will still be starving to death. That the end of hunger will in fact have come to our world. And maybe within that way of looking at things, there will be signs - there will be ways that we can recognize that we have begun to create a sustainable future and a healthy environment. We have a long way to go but major things happen. What a wonderful thing for our President to take a stand and say speak the truth about the tobacco industry (applause). I don't know all the ways that it's going to show up, but I know that it's happening. I know that it happens in here and I believe that it's happening from here. And it doesn't have to be painful. The questions I'm most asked by people is what can I possibly do - the problems are so very, very big. I keep reminding them, and now I'm also reminding myself - you don't have to do everything. But if you do what you an do what your consciousness, your concern, your vision moves you to do, that can even be easy and something that you do everyday. If you do that and if you do what you can do, if I do what I can do, and if we can begin to move people all over the world to that way of being, conscious in the world, then we will create that sustainable future and healthy environment. I wanted to do a couple of quick things. I was told at one hand back there I had 20 minutes and then somebody else said you have as long as you want - which is a dangerous thing! I wanted to recommend 2 things - one is a book entitled "The Trap" by Sir James Goldsmith. The most incredible thing I read in this that makes the rest of it fascinating to me in addressing things that are going on in our world, as we speak, and which might be the kind of things that you could get involved in or do something about in some way or another, is he says in here the greatest failure of a western mind that we have come to measure success in numbers rather than understanding. Blows me away. An expression of understanding from our next speaker who should be nominated for sainthood except I don't want him to pass on to the next world - we gotta keep him around forever - the arch druid - David Brower, one of our Windstar award winners, said in a little story in his book and I asked him if I could share this with you because it's also another side of the story that has to do about when you're pushing the river sometimes as I feel like I'm doing quite a lot. He talks about in nature making the wind blow can be a mistake. I know, because I tried it. When I was 11, I had the idea of raising butterflies. I liked Western Swallowtails which are exquisite creatures about 3" in wing span, yellow with a black boarder. Just above the tail they have eye spots of a rainbow hue. My neighborhood had many Swallowtails and was full of Annis - apple butterfly food. I started with the eggs. Tiny caterpillars emerged, yellow banded squibs of black. The caterpillars later turned to green and then into crystalids. I waited. When the day came, the first crystalid cracked, an antenna popped out, another. Then the butterfly laboriously climbed out. The abdomen was extended full of fluid that was pumped into the unexpended wings as the butterfly clung upside down on a twig. Thirty minutes later the formal caterpillar was aloft a miracle which was about to be short-circuited in my desire to help what I did not understand. As the remaining crystalid split, I lent a finger - very gently I widened their cracking skins. Their creatures promptly emerged - they just crawled about. What had been genetically designed, had been undone. What was supposed to happen now could not. The flow of fluid was not triggered by the butterfly's own exertions and failed to reach the wings. By freeing them, I had killed them. Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. Be careful what you do, but don't go from this place afraid to take action. Let me share with you, in closing, just a small action that I have taken. And I can tell you all kinds of things around it - I'll just read this letter which I've sent to every periodical that I'm aware of - from Newsweek to Time to People to outside - to whoever - to USA Today - everywhere to see if I can get this printed - so far I can't. I used to be a star! That reminds me. Please, while you're here, the new moon is tomorrow. Please while you're here if there's a clear night, get outside away from town and look at the stars. How many of you have never seen the Milky Way? Especially you guys! Go out and see the stars and one of the challenges I would give you is that throughout the coming years, every time there's no moon, get out of the city someplace and show some kid the stars. So, my little closing - READS EDITORIAL (SEE FURTHER IN NEWSLETTER) Regret because we did not act - we did not stand up for the things that we believe in, for the things that we care for, for the things that we know are a part of making us who and what we are as human beings. David Brower is going to come out in a minute. I can't urge you more to buy his book: Let The Mountains Talk, Let The Rivers Run. It might change your life. Part of what it might do is to teach you not to hesitate when you know what is right. Dancing on the thorns of indecision across the plains of hesitation where many stop and wait and in waiting die. But to be bold, to stand up and be counted. It's who we are and it's about time - CHOICES IN ACTION. Thank you very much, folks. Thanks for being here.