Written April 2007:
“So After having a quick glimpse of this world, after tasting the foods, meeting the peoples, observing their practices, exploring places beyond the beauty of words, studying new disciplines and meeting new friends, I have to say that I have realized one thing if nothing more. We have the capacity to make this world a great place for everyone to live in, and we have the capacity to continue exploitation, abuse, environmental degradation and to forget the lessons of our shared past and the predictions of our shared future…
…The beautiful and the ugly, the elegant and the vulgar, the spiritual and the profane. This was the world as seen through my eyes on Semester at Sea: Where the enticing scent of cloves and cherry blossoms battled the miasma of open sewers and rotting rubbish for dominance. I had seen poverty before. I had seen poverty, but nothing to prepare me for some of the things that I witnessed along the way.
Juxtaposed to this poverty, was opportunity, wielded in the hands of entrepreneurs and scaled by the power of markets. The opportunities we have available to us for creating a better world are greater than ever before in the history of humankind… even as write this very letter we currently have enough food and water for everyone, medicines to cure diseases and to prevent epidemics that needlessly plague millions of people; transportation systems that can deliver life’s essentials to even the most remote corners of the planet; the ability to raise literacy levels and to provide Internet services that could make it possible for every person on the planet to communicate with every other person; tools for conflict resolution that could render wars obsolete; technologies that explore both the vastness of space and the most minute subatomic energy. We have sufficient resources to accomplish all of the above, and much more. We just need to come together in our shared humanity and ensure we innovate to realize our potential. I believe entrepreneurs will be the individuals at the forefront of this global movement. Entrepreneurs seem to be a rare breed of humanity. A breed who look at issues and get blind-sided by a sense of opportunity. No matter how unfortunate the circumstance, entrepreneurs transform challenges into fortune…
…Most notably, on this trip I have realized that the only way we will transcend our current underpinnings will be not as individuals, not as nations, and not as states; but as people bound together in humanity. Our solutions will transcend borders and cultures. There is a common thread woven throughout all of us that binds us all together in this world. Whatever tomorrow has in store for us will inevitably be shared amongst us all. Tomorrow is today’s mystery…. I kind of like that.”