0:00:05.970,0:00:08.198
Mahatma Gandhi once said,

0:00:08.199,0:00:11.838
"There are two types[br]of power in the world:

0:00:11.839,0:00:15.118
the first obtained[br]for the fear of punishment,

0:00:15.119,0:00:17.879
and the second through acts of love."

0:00:17.880,0:00:20.479
He believed in love as a force for change,

0:00:20.480,0:00:24.709
and that any power obtained through[br]the fear of punishment was weak,

0:00:24.710,0:00:28.799
temporary, corrosive to the human spirit,

0:00:28.800,0:00:32.158
whereas that power enacted[br]through the acts of love

0:00:32.159,0:00:35.078
was 1,000 times more effective.

0:00:35.079,0:00:39.279
And better yet, permanent.

0:00:39.280,0:00:43.428
I felt that power of love from my father

0:00:43.429,0:00:47.599
the first time he taught me[br]how to ride a bicycle.

0:00:47.600,0:00:49.398
His love took the form of patience.

0:00:49.399,0:00:56.249
I recall how he gently ran beside me[br]holding, steadying, pushing,

0:00:56.250,0:01:01.339
gently encouraging me to trust[br]in what he knew was inside of me.

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I must have failed 100 times.

0:01:06.149,0:01:09.959
But then came that moment,[br]as if by some act of magic,

0:01:09.960,0:01:13.399
my tires righted for the first time.

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And I remember as this young child

0:01:15.590,0:01:21.958
feeling as if I was floating in flight[br]through the heart of a neighborhood.

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And for that moment, all the things[br]that hung heavy in my young heart,

0:01:27.640,0:01:31.078
all the things my young mind[br]couldn't understand,

0:01:31.079,0:01:34.078
my parents late-night fights,

0:01:34.079,0:01:37.718
their crumbling marriage,[br]the slow-moving disease

0:01:37.719,0:01:39.519
that crept through my mother's body,

0:01:39.520,0:01:42.969
all of it seemed to disappear[br]that first afternoon.

0:01:44.439,0:01:49.119
And so it was not long after that[br]that I began a ritual of my own.

0:01:49.120,0:01:50.949
It began each day after school

0:01:50.950,0:01:53.039
as I'd hurriedly make my way[br]to my bicycle,

0:01:53.040,0:01:56.508
grab it from the rack,[br]pedal across my neighborhood,

0:01:56.509,0:01:57.958
push it beneath the fence,

0:01:57.959,0:02:02.318
and then cycle deep[br]into the heart of a nearby wildlands

0:02:02.319,0:02:06.679
in the east of the San Francisco Bay area.

0:02:06.680,0:02:09.559
And it was there that I found solace.

0:02:09.560,0:02:15.478
Simply peddling over dirt,[br]through the forest and the trees,

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because there was something[br]in that simple act of motion

0:02:19.599,0:02:23.408
atop that equally simple machine[br]of rubber and steel

0:02:23.409,0:02:26.438
that brought me back to myself.

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And in that I was free.

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But then my life changed[br]as all lives must.

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And within two years,[br]my parents had argued so much,

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my father moved out of the house,[br]and I lost interest in that bike.

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And as it sat dormant collecting dust[br]in some remote corner of the garage,

0:02:49.280,0:02:52.440
my mother died in the midst[br]of a bitter divorce.

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Needless to say, as I was first thrust out[br]in the world as a young man,

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I spent the first decade of my life angry,

0:03:01.810,0:03:06.279
bitter, hurting myself, hurting others,

0:03:06.280,0:03:10.158
the power of love nowhere to be found.

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But then my father returned to my life.

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He said to me, "I understand.

0:03:18.879,0:03:21.839
I felt that loss, too.

0:03:21.840,0:03:23.438
And I needed to talk to somebody.

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Perhaps you should[br]think about that as well."

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Six months later, I sat[br]before a psychotherapist.

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"I think I'm crazy," I said to her.

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I thought she'd have me committed.

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Instead, she looked at me with warm,[br]empathetic eyes, and she said,

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"Rick, the ones[br]who are truly crazy in this world

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are the ones who are trying very hard[br]to convince you that they're not."

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That was the beginning of my healing path.

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And for the next three years,[br]I dug deeply into myself,

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sometimes looking at parts[br]I didn't want to see.

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But after that three-years period,[br]there came what some people call

0:04:06.820,0:04:10.799
a moment of clarity,[br]a tipping point, if you will,

0:04:10.800,0:04:16.958
at which I was able to ask myself[br]one of life's most important questions:

0:04:16.959,0:04:19.889
what do you want before you die?

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What is your dream?

0:04:22.240,0:04:25.518
I had worked 14 years[br]as a daily newspaper photographer,

0:04:25.519,0:04:30.349
and I knew one thing for sure:[br]that career was no longer feeding me.

0:04:31.519,0:04:34.239
I had had a larger dream.

0:04:34.240,0:04:37.919
I had always dreamed of riding[br]a bicycle around the world.

0:04:37.920,0:04:40.638
And so within a two-year period of time,

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I found myself sitting on the top[br]of the Golden Gate Bridge on my bike,

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saying goodbye to friends and family,[br]riding 4,000 miles across America.

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I pedaled in America 4,000 miles there,[br]and moved on to Europe

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where I spent eight months cycling through[br]the coldest winter in European record.

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From there, I went south[br]through Greece and into Turkey.

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I was denied a visa to come into Iran

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so I continued through[br]Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, China,

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18,000 feet over the Tibetan Plateau,[br]and down into India,

0:05:23.080,0:05:25.080
Nepal, and Bangladesh.

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It was there that I began[br]to see something different

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from the seat of my bicycle:

0:05:32.340,0:05:36.150
suffering on a level[br]that I had never seen before.

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And only then did I learn[br]the second power of love,

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the first being the care of self,[br]and the second to allow that

0:05:44.970,0:05:48.950
to be reflected outwards,[br]towards service to others.

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I began volunteering[br]in the time off my bike.

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The first, the hardest, was comforting

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the dead and dying[br]in an aid hospice in Thailand.

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That was followed by bomb extraction work

0:06:05.249,0:06:08.608
in Laos alongside these gentlemen

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that extract bombs and keep them[br]from killing anybody else.

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I followed that up in Vietnam by working[br]alongside mine victim rehabilitation

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and then taught English[br]to impoverished children in Cambodia.

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But the reason I'm here today

0:06:26.529,0:06:29.838
is to tell you about[br]what happened just after that.

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I was cycling south through Thailand,

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and I met this gentleman,[br]an Iranian from Mashhad, Iran.

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We corresponded by email for a while.

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Mohammed Tajaran was his name.

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He invited me to come to Penang, Malaysia.

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Pretty soon, I was sitting[br]having coffee and lunch with him.

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We agreed we'd ride[br]together across Malaysia,

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across Malaysia's main range, one[br]of the oldest rainforests in the world.

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And as we rode side by side,[br]I asked him about his life.

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What he told me was profound.

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He told me, his father had died[br]when he was young,

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and that he'd done[br]everything right in his life;

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that he got his degree in engineering,[br]opened a successful business.

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But then as he was climbing[br]a mountain one day,

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he realized that it just wasn't right.

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And so, he began to plan for a journey.

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For him, he had a dream[br]to cycle around the world.

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And as he got ready[br]to do that, he learned English,

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and then he just set out[br]with 500 bucks in his pocket.

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Well, that afternoon, what I realized

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was this man was telling my story.

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That was my story.

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And I thought to myself: here was[br]this man that people were saying,

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this is your enemy, when, in fact,[br]I had more in common with this man

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than I had with many[br]of my friends back home.

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After the end of our ride,

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into the east coast of Malaysia,[br]we dug a hole.

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He was riding[br]around the world planting trees.

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And we decided to plant[br]a tree together, for peace,

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a tree that still remains[br]and grows for peace

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between our two countries,[br]America and Iran.

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(Applause)

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And when I said goodbye to Mohammed,[br]I told him that I loved him.

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I began to weep because I was sorry[br]that our two countries

0:08:54.439,0:08:58.518
were hurling a warlike rhetoric[br]at one another.

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They were not acting[br]from the power of love,

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but they were acting from this power

0:09:02.679,0:09:06.758
they hope to attain[br]through threats of punishment.

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And so, over the years[br]that I didn't see Mohammed,

0:09:09.650,0:09:14.659
we developed a second program project[br]called "The Wheels of Peace".

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And instead of explaining that to you,

0:09:17.639,0:09:20.859
I'd like to invite him out here[br]to explain it to you himself.

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Mohammed, are you in there somewhere?[br]He got lost on his bike somewhere.

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Where are you Mohammed? He's shy.

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He doesn't want to come out now.

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Mohammad, are you back there?

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I don't know what happened.

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(Applause)

0:09:49.199,0:09:52.679
Mohammed Tajaran: I've been waiting[br]so long for this moment

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to hug one of my best friends in front[br]of a crowd in my country, in Iran.

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I'm so excited, so emotional now.

0:10:02.380,0:10:04.838
"Wheels of Peace" is a project

0:10:04.839,0:10:08.039
to connect kids[br]from two different nations.

0:10:08.042,0:10:14.479
They're like two wheels of a bicycle,[br]totally dependent on each other.

0:10:14.480,0:10:18.719
If one doesn't work,[br]the other one would fail.

0:10:18.720,0:10:25.979
Rick and I are just like a frame[br]trying to connect them through our force,

0:10:25.980,0:10:29.139
our letters and exchanging those letters.

0:10:30.429,0:10:32.010
A letter to understand

0:10:32.930,0:10:36.758
they have the same values[br]in the whole system.

0:10:36.759,0:10:40.548
In the same way, in our world,

0:10:40.549,0:10:45.429
peace is related to the peace[br]of every single nation.

0:10:46.876,0:10:49.068
As Saadi said,

0:10:49.069,0:10:54.839
"Human beings are members of a whole,[br]in creation of one essence and soul.

0:10:54.840,0:11:01.660
If one member is afflicted with pain,[br]other members uneasy will remain."

0:11:04.000,0:11:08.250
RG: And so Mohammed and I visited[br]classrooms in Iran and America.

0:11:08.269,0:11:10.999
Each one of us would collect[br]artwork and letters

0:11:11.000,0:11:13.999
to be exchanged by the children.

0:11:14.000,0:11:17.209
Then we met in--[br]I can't say the word,

0:11:17.210,0:11:20.638
Kish Island, just next door last year.

0:11:20.639,0:11:25.239
And we brought that artwork[br]and those letters together.

0:11:25.240,0:11:27.918
And I guess the thing[br]that I want to finish with is:

0:11:27.919,0:11:30.599
what did you learn from all of this?

0:11:30.600,0:11:34.999
And you know, I think it's something[br]that all of you already know;

0:11:35.000,0:11:39.079
that in our approach every day,[br]moment to moment,

0:11:39.080,0:11:42.678
we have a choice to operate[br]from what Gandhi spoke of,

0:11:42.679,0:11:48.399
to operate from that place of love[br]or to operate from that place of fear.

0:11:50.399,0:11:54.599
And so, for me personally,[br]I think you know the choice,

0:11:54.600,0:11:57.558
I think you know the choice for Mohammad.

0:11:57.559,0:11:59.857
But we'll be gone soon enough[br]in so many years,

0:11:59.858,0:12:02.614
and we have the next generation coming.

0:12:02.615,0:12:04.999
So I'd like to share with you[br]what they had to say

0:12:05.000,0:12:07.969
to one another with their art[br]and with their letters.

0:12:10.909,0:12:14.979
[What did the children of America and Iran[br]have to say to one another?]

0:12:16.369,0:12:18.323
(Video) (Music)

0:12:33.208,0:12:35.062
[I love you my friend!]

0:12:35.063,0:12:38.539
[Aren't we all humans,[br]then why can't we live in peace?]

0:12:46.609,0:12:47.730
[Love]

0:12:53.030,0:12:55.269
[me and you, friends forever]

0:13:01.715,0:13:02.895
[Friends]

0:13:04.879,0:13:06.660
[No more war]

0:13:13.294,0:13:16.294
[Iran, America, Peace]

0:13:17.230,0:13:19.989
[No war, more peace]

0:13:32.659,0:13:36.388
[Love is the only force capable of turning[br]an enemy into a friend." Dr.MLK Jr.]

0:13:36.388,0:13:37.439
(Applause)

0:13:37.440,0:13:38.499
RG: Thank you.

0:13:38.500,0:13:40.919
MT: Thank you very much.[br]I really appreciate it.

0:13:40.920,0:13:42.320
(Applause)