(Speaker inhales and exhales)
Some seconds can change our lives forever,
through the ability to break us from a past we don’t want
and create a future that we want.
I like to call these seconds “turning points.”
In my life, one of these seconds happened a long time ago,
on May 11, 1998, at 23 hours and 17 minutes.
You may ask, “Wait, Mauricio,
that was a long time ago, how do you remember that?”
That’s a good question because it’s very likely
that no one remembers what they did on that day and hour, right?
But I can remember with an incredible level of detail
where I was and how I got there.
Try to imagine – maybe you were just going off to sleep,
maybe you were watching television,
maybe you were already in a deep sleep.
But I found myself in a very unusual situation.
At that moment, I was inside a dark tunnel,
completely submerged in water, unable to breathe,
unable to see my hand in front of my face.
How did I get there?
Well, to explain this,
I’ll invite you back a little in time with me.
Is that OK? Yes?
The day before, a little after 11 o’clock in the morning,
my exploration team and I entered one of the largest caves in Brazil,
in the south of the state of São Paulo.
We wanted to visit one of the most beautiful galleries
of rock formations that exist in the world.
Our team wasn’t big. Five people: four men and one woman.
The most experienced of all is a great friend of mine – Carlão,
this guy is bosom pal.
Carlão was the most experienced,
a geologist who knew everything about caves
and had already visited caves all over the world.
Junior, Ricardo and I had average experience,
acquired over six years practicing this adventure sport:
speleology.
The name is strange, but that’s it. Speleology is the exploration of caves.
And the only woman in the team, Adriana, was a bit inexperienced.
Okay, the truth is
this was the first time that she was entering a cave.
She’d never been inside a cave before.
She was only in the group for two reasons.
The first is that she was Ricardo’s girlfriend,
and that’s why he wanted her there,
he really wanted her there.
And there was another reason: she was the only one with a car.
(Laughter)
So we also wanted her there for that reason, right?
The decision to enter that cave was made through our non-compliance
of all the rules, all the regulations.
Why? Because we needed permission and we didn’t have it.
So we decided to enter without permission.
The entrance to the cave had railings, and this railing had a padlock,
but that was no problem because we had a key.
Though I have to admit that this key was made illegally by Carlão
when he was working as the park volunteer.
And the decision to enter there, contrary to the norms,
would cause me to experience in the next 44 hours,
situations that I had never imagined.
At the exact moment I entered there and left behind the daylight,
I would make one of the most impacting decisions for my future,
which hours later would transform my life completely.
Of course, I didn’t have the slightest idea about this.
You never imagine that the second that can change everything
could happen now, for example.
I’d like to suggest a quick exercise for us to feel a second.
Do you want to do this exercise with me? Yes? OK then.
II’ll count to three, and as I count, try to feel the second.
Let’s go: one, two, three. Feel the second.
It’s gone.
If you felt it, it’s yours.
If you lost it, it’ll never come back again.
Every second is unique, magical, and special in our lives.
We took roughly a couple of hours to get there.
That is one of the most beautiful and fragile places
I’ve ever been to in all my life.
Stalactites develop in the proportion of one millimeter every three years.
You look at a one-meter stalactite and say, “Wow! This is 3,000 years old!”
And it’s in the dripping from the tip of the stalactite
that precipitation of the calcite occurs
and deposits the limestone there, creating that formation.
It’s a real masterpiece of nature, created through patience.
What we didn’t imagine is that nature’s patience would contrast,
in the coming hours,
with the despair of all we were going to experience there,
because the way back was very difficult.
Whereas the going route was intuitive and linear –
you’d look and said, “It’s this way” –
the way back started to present so many options, but so many options,
that we weren’t sure which one to choose.
We ended up choosing randomly any route.
And we chose the wrong paths which led us to deeper
and unknown parts of that cave.
In a short time, we were already kilometers away from the daylight –
and remember, nobody outside knew where we were –
and treading areas where none of us had ever trod.
Guys, in the beginning, being lost was very cool.
I really enjoyed being lost, you have no idea.
I had never been lost before, it was great.
I said, “I’m lost, this is really cool!”
Except that, as time went by, that euphoria was giving place
to fear and despair.
We came to the conclusion that we had few resources.
For example, we had few batteries to supply our lights
and that was frightening.
I, in particular, realized that we had little food,
and that to me was even more frightening.
So we thought, “We have to find a way out of here soon.
Let’s think of a strategy.”
The cave is a huge mountain,
and at its base is a river which runs through its entire length.
The river crosses the mountain and surfaces at the mouth of the cave.
We thought, “If we get to the river, we just have to follow the water.
If the water comes out from the mouth of the cave,
we can get out by following the water.”
And as we were on a higher part, our strategy was to go down,
because by going down we’d find the river.
That was the way.
But the myriad of paths began to mingle
with a myriad of dead-end tunnels.
I remember well that we’d be walking for 10, 15, 20 minutes,
and we’d suddenly find a dead-end tunnel and have to go back the same way.
Sometimes something worse would happen.
We’d be walking for an hour or so
and suddenly say, “Hey, this can’t be! I’m sure we’ve already been here, look!”
So we’d be walking around in circles.
And this went on for hours and hours.
This went on for 32 hours.
I said 32 hours.
Can you imagine what walking for 32 hours is like,
32 hours returning to the same place, 32 hours walking around in circles?
And with each failed attempt,
it was as if that cave took away some of our hope.
And it was exactly when our hope was almost over
that something great happened.
We started to hear the sound of water,
and a few minutes later we saw the river in front of us.
I thought, “We only need to get into this water, follow its flow
and we’ll get to the mouth of the cave,
and this path will lead me back to the surface
and back to my life.”
Except that entering that water isn’t for everyone.
It requires a good deal of courage, the water’s freezing, and that’s not all –
when you enter that water,
it’s like you’re setting off a time bomb, you know?
Because you only have very little time
before the risk of developing hypothermia –
the loss of body heat, which consequently may kill you.
We were all aware of this,
but we also decided that it was our best chance of survival.
And that’s how we decided to enter the river.
I’ll never forget the feeling upon entering that water.
It’s as if you have multiple blades piercing your body all at once
because the coldness brings on the pain,
and this taught me that it’s possible to feel pain and joy at the same time.
If, on the one hand, that coldness was almost unbearable,
on the other hand, we were aware that we only needed to follow that river
and soon we’d reach the mouth of the cave.
We just needed to have focus, determination, persistence.
But the hardest part of that experience
was only just beginning.
I started to realize this as I went along the river and looked at the ceiling.
That ceiling, which at first was high, started to get lower and lower.
At first, I thought, “I think this is some kind of optical illusion.
This can’t be happening.”
But very soon I had no more doubts.
The ceiling dropped so low that it touched the surface of the water,
and the water continued its normal flow, touching the roof of the tunnel.
If we wanted to continue along that river, we’d have to dive into that tunnel,
knowing that there was no air to breathe.
We couldn’t use our lights.
Remember, this was 1998 and we didn’t have the money to buy an underwater light.
We didn’t know the size of that tunnel.
Going back and leaving the river –
think about it –
with wet clothes in that cold environment,
going back could mean spending hours and hours
in search of a new path,
and then our destiny would be written:
a great chance of dying through hypothermia.
There was no other alternative other than to enter that tunnel,
hoping that it wouldn’t be too long, hoping it was short enough
so that on the other side we’d still have some air in our lungs.
And so, one by one, we all decided to enter that tunnel.
I was the last because I didn’t want to leave anybody behind.
It was then that the biggest turning point in my life happened.
At precisely 23 hours and 17 minutes on May 11, 1998,
I breathed in all the air that I could fit inside my lungs …
(Inhaling)
… and I dived into that tunnel.
When I put my head under, I remember the first thing I noticed
was the silence,
a terrifying silence as if I was entering another world.
But, gradually, that silence turned into the noise of swirling water.
I’d never been able to open my eyes underwater;
in fact, I’m still unable.
But it wouldn’t have made any difference because our lights didn’t work.
I was moving along half walking, half swimming,
but always groping for the ceiling, in the expectation that, at any time,
that tunnel would come to an end.
But time was passing,
and with each centimeter, with every step, every meter,
I was convinced that maybe that tunnel wasn’t going to end.
The adrenaline rose, my heart was beating faster,
more oxygen consumption,
and for some reason I can’t explain my lungs let out all the air.
(Exhales)
Can you do this with me?
Let out all the air from your lungs.
(Audience exhales)
Hold it like that. That’s how I found myself,
completely submerged in a tunnel, in the dark, unable to breathe.
You can all breathe now, I don’t want anyone dying here, OK.
(Laughter)
What I’m going to tell you now will take a few minutes,
but there it lasted only a second.
In just one second, I realized
that maybe the next day would never arrive, you know?
I started to think,
(Sighs) “Maybe tomorrow will never come.”
And, in the face of my life’s finiteness,
my values became completely inverted.
In just one second, I realized that everything that I’d always valued
actually had no importance.
And the things I’d never paid attention to
suddenly became the most important things that I could have.
In fact, “have” is an interesting word.
What’s really yours? What belongs to you?
I realized there that I’d never had anything.
What I called mine: my sneakers, my clothes, my computer –
nothing was mine because I couldn’t take them with me.
The only things I had were the moments I’d spent with people
and, believe me, I’d even managed to spoil many of those moments,
I had thrown many of them away.
I realized there that we cause conflicts with the people we love
for futile reasons.
We fight with people for reasons that won’t make the slightest difference
in the last day of our lives,
when each one of us is inside our own dark tunnel,
facing our last day here on Earth.
Another word: worry.
What worries you? What causes you to lose sleep?
I had so many worries – money, a good social status,
good clothes, striving to buy the newest car.
None of this mattered anymore to me.
But, in compensation, how I then longed for an opportunity
to sit down to one more meal with my parents.
I remembered – I’ll never forget this –
a memory came back to me
about the many times I’d carry my plate of noodles
and sit in front of the television away from the company of my parents,
leaving them there alone.
And everything I wanted right then was just another family meal.
That second also boosted me in the direction of my biggest dreams
because I realized that I had just watched my life go by,
like watching a movie at the cinema.
You go there, buy a soda, popcorn, sit in that comfortable armchair
and see everything happening; you feel moved, you enjoy it,
but you’re unable to influence the story’s script.
And I promised if I’d get through all this,
I’d assume control of my life.
I’d go after my dreams, after my greatest achievements.
And it was in face of this unlikely inversion of values
that my hand touched an air bubble,
and I thought, “Thank God! I can breathe once more!”
And when I put my head there in that air bubble,
it wasn’t an air bubble,
it was the other side.
Four happy people were there because the fifth had made it.
They pulled me out so hard that my arms were all scratched.
They embraced me so hard that I almost couldn’t breathe.
Have you heard the saying: “When it rains, it pours”?
Exactly, our relief didn’t last long.
The cave had prepared one more opportunity for us to reflect on our lives.
Our light batteries had died before we’d reached the exit,
and to walk along that dark river was impossible.
On the right, there was a small bank that we’d been following for some time,
and I knew that was an area where sometimes a tourist might appear.
So we thought, “We need to stay here,
hopefully someone will pass by and rescue us.”
And we sat down on that bank.
It was there that we huddled together to exchange body heat.
It was there that I immersed into my deepest thoughts.
It was there, shivering with cold during the next hours
that I realized that beyond that huge physical cave,
there was another cave here inside me.
And I had never visited this cave.
And this inner cave could show me a new way of seeing life,
a new way of taking my next steps, if I was lucky enough for that to happen.
And these steps started to become real when the sun rose on that Tuesday.
Our eyes, our pupils, dilated by the darkness,
began to make out how much we were already near the exit.
We only had to get up and walk in that direction.
We put our arms around each other, and off we went.
And after 44 hours far from daylight,
we went out of the same cave mouth that we had entered.
And I promised myself that that experience would lead me
to a future that I wanted to build.
Today, almost 19 years later,
each member of our team has gone their own path.
I decided to share this experience with everyone,
not just this experience,
but principally one of the most important lessons
that those 44 hours taught me:
that every human being has their own inside cave,
and we need to lose ourselves here inside
in order to realize that life presents a great opportunity to be daring.
I learned that every second is a turning point,
an opportunity to enter inside this inner cave,
an opportunity to make decisions.
Whether right or wrong, they can give us strength,
they can show us how to find the exit.
And this would only be impossible if we remain in the same place forever.
Thank you very much.
(Applause) (Cheers)
”
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