reposting a Lingis anecdote

Today I’ve been in touch with another reader of this blog who is an Alphonso Lingis fan. Ironically, my favorite Lingis story is one that I did not witness myself, but is so obviously Lingisian that I take it at face value. I posted this during the first incarnation of the blog, but it’s sufficiently inspiring to be worth a reposting now and then.

The story is that Lingis told one of his classes at Penn State this:

Go outside on a starry night, and try to get a sense for the vastness of the universe. Then look at your fingerprint, and consider that it’s enough to make you unique out of all of that. And then consider how much more complicated your brain is than your fingerprint. Your brain is wired to do something that nothing else in this universe can do. And if you don’t do it, it’s not going to get done.