Okay, so I want you to imagine something. Imagine
I just handed you a resume. Okay. It's just a
single sheet of paper, you know, standard formatting.
You scan down to the experience section and here's
what you see. First line, world -class concert
organist. Right. Impressive start. Immediately
under that, revolutionary theologian. Then PhD
in philosophy. And for the final line, jungle
doctor. I'd assume you accidentally stapled four
different LinkedIn profiles together. Exactly.
It reads like a glitch in the simulation. Yeah,
there's no way. It sounds like the resume of
four different very ambitious people, not one.
It just feels, I don't know, genuinely impossible
by modern standards. Well, it does because we
live in the age of hyper -specialization, right?
It's Elaine. Pick Elaine and stay in it. The
modern world tells you if you're a doctor, you're
a doctor. If you're a musician, you're a musician.
You don't get to be a world authority in both.
It's just not done. But today... We're doing
a deep dive into the life of a man who didn't
just switch lanes. It feels like he built entirely
new highways in completely contradictory territories.
A very good way to put it. We are talking about
Albert Schweitzer. Yeah. And looking at the stack
of sources we have here, I mean, we've got biographies,
some very heavy theological texts, musical critiques,
medical journals. Our mission today is to try
and unpack how on earth one person achieve that
level of mastery in all these fields. And maybe
more importantly, to explore the very complex,
sometimes very controversial legacy of his philosophy.
Because Schweitzer isn't just a quirky historical
footnote. He was a superstar of the 20th century,
a household name. And he fundamentally challenged
how we think about civilization itself. Exactly.
We're going to look at the theology that absolutely
shocked the church, the music theory that changed
how we hear Bach, and of course, the decision
that made him famous. Leaving all that. behind
to go work in a chicken coop in Africa. Yeah,
chicken coop. But before we get to the jungle,
we have to start with the origin story. I mean,
where does a polymath like this actually come
from? The geography is actually, I think, the
first big clue to his psychology. Schweitzer
was born in 1875 in Alsace. Now, for anyone who
knows their European history. Alsace is a fascinating
place. It's a border region that has basically
been the ping pong ball of Europe. Bouncing between
France and Germany. For centuries. So depending
on the year, your passport color changes. Right.
Exactly. When Schweitzer was born, Alsace had
just recently been annexed by the German Empire
after the Franco -Prussian War. But culturally,
the roots were still... Very, very French. And
then later it flipped back. It did. After World
War I, he became a French citizen. So from day
one, he grew up fully bilingual, straddling two
major European superpowers. He didn't see borders
as these rigid, impassable walls. For him, they
were fluid. And that fluidity, that applied to
his religious upbringing too, right? I found
this detail about his childhood church in the
village of Gunsbach. Absolutely wild. It is a
rare detail. It's so important. His father was
the local Lutheran pastor, but the village church
was something called a simultaneum. A simultaneum.
Yeah, it's a fancy term meaning the church building
was shared. The Protestants and the Catholics
used the exact same sanctuary. What? In the same
building? In the same building. They just had
their services at different times in different
parts of the church. The Catholics used the chancel.
The Protestants used the nave. That blows my
mind for the late 19th century. Usually in that
era, Protestants and Catholics weren't exactly
borrowing each other's sugar, let alone sharing
an altar space. Not at all. It was incredibly
rare. And growing up in that specific environment
gave Schweitzer this foundational belief that
dogma shouldn't divide us. He saw from childhood
that true Christianity, and you could say true
humanity, really should work toward unity. Yeah,
I guess if you can share a church building with
people you supposedly disagree with on fundamental
theology, maybe you can bridge other divides
too. That's the core of it. So he's got this...
open -minded cross -cultural foundation he goes
off to university and by his 20s he is just on
an absolute tear an academic explosion it really
was i mean most people struggle to finish one
degree schweitzer is collecting them like he's
trying to complete a set he gets a doctorate
in philosophy and a licentiate in theology and
this brings us to the first major pillar of his
legacy, right? The theological revolutionary.
Yes. We have to understand that before he ever
put on a stethoscope, Schweitzer dropped what
was essentially a nuclear bomb on the academic
world of theology. You're talking about his 1906
book, The Quest to the Historical Jesus. Now,
to a modern ear, that title sounds a bit dry.
A little academic, yeah. Maybe something you'd
see on a dusty shelf in a seminary basement.
Yeah. But you're saying this was a scandalous
book? Oh, scandalous is the right word. It was
an absolute demolition job of the status quo.
To understand why, you have to look at what the
scholars were saying at the turn of the 20th
century. The dominant view was what they called
liberal Protestantism. Okay, let's unpack that.
What did the liberals believe about Jesus? They
essentially viewed Jesus as a great moral teacher,
a kind of enlightened philosopher. They stripped
away all the uncomfortable bits, the miracles,
the mysticism, the scary judgment stuff. They
painted a portrait of a kind, gentle figure who
taught timeless ethical truths, truths that coincidentally
fit very nicely with modern, polite European
society. So they basically created a Jesus who
looked a lot like a 19th century gentleman. A
guy you'd be comfortable having over for tea.
Exactly. A respectable Victorian. They were projecting
their own values onto him. And Schweitzer looked
at the text. He really, really looked at the
source material and said, no, you are making
him in your own image. You are looking down a
long, dark well and seeing your own reflection
at the bottom. Wow. That is a savage critique.
So what did Schweitzer see in the well that they
missed? He argued that the historical Jesus was,
in fact, an apocalyptic prophet. Apocalyptic
like end of the world stuff. Exactly. Schweitzer
believed that Jesus thought the end of the world
was imminent. Not in some metaphorical sense,
but literally. For real. He believed the kingdom
of God was going to crash into history within
the lifetime of his disciples. The whole mission
was urgent because time was running out. Wait.
So Schweitzer, a Christian theologian, a guy
training to be a pastor, is arguing that Jesus
believed the world was about to end. And he was
wrong. That is the crux of the shock. That's
the bomb. Schweitzer pointed to verses in Matthew
and Mark like, this generation will not pass
away until all these things have taken place
and said Jesus was operating under a consistent
eschatology. Eschatology. That's the study of
the end times. Right. The study of the last things.
Right. And Schweitzer's argument was that Jesus
wasn't just predicting the end. He was trying
to force it to happen. He threw himself onto
the wheel of history, as Schweitzer put it, to
make it turn that final revolution. He went to
the cross to trigger the apocalypse. And it didn't
happen. It didn't happen. The world kept spinning.
So the early church had to scramble to reinterpret
everything. The whole idea of the kingdom of
God had to be transformed from an imminent event
into a future hope or an internal spiritual reality.
That is a st - staggeringly bold take for a guy
who is supposed to be training pastors. It is.
He's basically saying the foundation of the faith
is based on a mistaken timeline. It shattered
the academic landscape. Conservatives were horrified.
Liberals were furious because he took away their
gentle teacher. But, and this is the key insight
for our deep dive. Schweitzer didn't do this
to destroy faith. He did it to strip away the
comfortable illusions we'd built up. To get back
to the source. To get back to the raw power of
this figure. Even if that figure was a stranger
to our modern sensibilities. There's that famous
quote at the end of the book. It's really haunting.
I think I have it here in the notes. He describes
Jesus coming to us as one unknown. Oh, yeah.
That ending is one of the most powerful passages
in 20th century theology. Read the full excerpt.
It really captures his vibe. Okay, here it is.
He comes to us as one unknown without a name,
as of old by the lakeside. He came to those men
who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word,
follow thou me, and sets us to the tasks. which
he has to fulfill for our time. You see what
he's doing there? He's saying you don't find
Jesus by sitting in a library analyzing history
books. You don't find him in dogma. You find
him by obeying that command to serve. You discover
who he is in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings.
It shifts the entire focus from intellectual
ascent to... Active participation. It's a theology
of action. It's not about believing the right
list of facts. It's about doing the work. And
that just becomes the theme of his entire life.
Wow. And he wasn't done. He applied that same
rigorous, stripping down approach to St. Paul,
too. In his other big book, The Mysticism of
Paul the Apostle, he challenged the Lutheran
standard again. And the Lutheran standard is
usually all about justification by faith, right?
That's the big one. The legal standing of the
believer before God. Correct. It's a courtroom
metaphor. You are guilty. but Christ's righteousness
is applied to you, so you're declared innocent.
Schweitzer looked at Paul's writings and said,
no, that's part of it, but you're missing the
core. He argued the central concept for Paul
was being in Christ. Being in Christ. A mystical
union. It's not just a legal status change. It's
a physical and spiritual participation in the
dying and rising of Christ. It's about being
incorporated into this new reality. Participation.
That seems to be the word of the day for Schweitzer.
He can't just study a thing from a distance.
He has to merge with it. Which is the perfect
transition to his other life. His other full
-time job. Yes, because while he's dismantling
2 ,000 years of theology and reconstructing the
New Testament, he's, you know, just casually
becoming one of the world's leading experts on
Johann Sebastian Bach. Casually. Doing something
that would be a lifetime achievement for anyone
else. Yeah. It really is like he had more hours
in the day than the rest of us. It certainly
seems that way. And look, at the time, Bach was
respected, of course, but he was often played
in a very stiff mathematical way. Like a technical
exercise. Exactly. People treated his music like
complex algebra. Technically impressive, but
dry. Academic. Schweitzer comes along and tells
his teacher, the very famous French organist
Charles -Marie Radour, that they're all hearing
it wrong. He says Bach is actually a painter.
A painter? How does that work in music? Is he
talking about synesthesia or something? In a
way, yes. Schweitzer argued that Bach's melodies
were pictorial. They weren't just abstract notes.
They were illustrating the text of the hymns
they were based on. He called Bach a musician
poet. So give me an example. Okay, so if the
lyrics of the chorale mentioned falling or sin
or descent into the grave, the notes in Bach's
organ part would literally tumble down the scale.
If the text was about joy or resurrection or
ascending to heaven, the rhythm would dance and
the melody would climb upwards. That completely
changes the listening experience. It stops being
abstract math and becomes a narrative. A story
in sound. It brings the emotion back. It connects
the sound to the meaning. For Schweitzer, you
couldn't separate Bach's music from his Lutheran
faith. The music was theology. And he wasn't
just analyzing the sheet music. He became obsessed
with the mechanics of the instrument itself.
Right. He launched the Orgelbegon, the organ
reform movement. He did. That sounds like a very
serious political party. Vote for the organ reform
movement. What was he actually reforming? He
absolutely hated the modern organs being built
in the early 20th century. He saw them as these
industrial factories. They were built for sheer
volume, harsh, loud, high pressure wind systems.
They were designed to fill massive halls with
just a wall of sound. Schweitzer wanted to save
the old Baroque principles. So he's a vintage
gear snob. He's the guy saying vinyl sounds better
than digital. In the best way possible, yes.
A total purist. He wanted organs where the different
voices were distinct. In a fugue, you have multiple
melody lines weaving together. That's called
polyphony. On a loud, modern organ, that just
turns into a wall of mud. You can't distinguish
the lines. On a good Baroque organ, you can hear
every single thread. He wanted clarity over raw
power. Speaking of clarity, I found a little
technical nugget in the sources that I think
the audiophiles listening will love. There is
actually a Schweitzer technique for recording,
isn't there? Yes. This shows how deep his obsession
went. Schweitzer, working with his engineers
for his Columbia Records recordings, developed
a specific microphone placement to capture that
distinct, spiritual sound he loved. What did
they do? Instead of the standard setup, they
used two small diaphragm condenser microphones,
and they pointed them directly away from each
other. Pointed away. That seems totally counterintuitive.
Usually you point the mic at the thing you want
to record. It does, but what it does is it captures
the reflected sound of the room, the bloom of
the notes mixing in the air of the church, rather
than the direct harsh attack of the sound coming
straight from the pipes. It creates this specific
stereo field that feels warm and spacious and
alive. He was a perfectionist. Incredibly picky.
He would listen back to the recordings and reject
takes if he felt the instrument sounded too harsh
or too direct. He was chasing a feeling, not
just a perfect note. OK, so let's recap the scoreboard
here, because this is where the story pivots
so hard it gives you whiplash. There it comes.
We have a guy who is a celebrity in theology.
His books are required reading. He's a celebrity
in music. He's a concert organist touring Europe.
He is friends with the Wagner family at Beirut.
He has a brilliant, comfortable academic career
laid out in front of him. He's 30 years old.
He has won the game of life. And then. The Great
Pivot. He drops the mic. He literally blows up
his own life. In 1905, he sends letters to his
family and friends announcing that he is quitting
everything. He is resigning his post as principal
of a theological college. He is going to medical
school to become a general practitioner, and
then he is going to Africa. Why? I mean, seriously,
why? He has it made. Why would you do that? It
goes right back to that one unknown quote from
his Jesus book. A Theology of Action Exactly.
He felt that he had been preaching words, but
not living them. He wrote about feeling this
deep sense of debt. He realized that he enjoyed
all these privileges, art, science, religion,
while most of the world was suffering in ways
he couldn't imagine. He wanted to strip away
all the intellectual arguments and follow the
example of Jesus through direct practical service.
He wanted to live his argument. And I assume
his friends and family were just thrilled about
this noble sacrifice. Oh, they were horrified,
utterly horrified. They thought he was having
a mental breakdown. Yes. They told him he was
burying his talent in the ground. One friend
basically wrote to him saying, you are a general,
don't go fight in the trenches as a private.
A man of his intellect, his genius, going to
start over as a freshman medical student, it
seemed insane, a waste. And it wasn't just his
friends, right? The actual missionary society,
the people he wanted to work for, they didn't
even want him. That is the ultimate irony, isn't
it? The Paris Missionary Society was deeply suspicious
of him. Because of his theology. Of course. Remember,
he's the guy who wrote the book saying Jesus
was mistaken about the end of the world. They
essentially said, we don't want you confusing
the people with your radical liberal theology.
We want simple gospel truth. That is incredible.
He wants to give up his entire life to serve,
and they're checking his doctrine at the door.
Schweitzer had to meet with the board, and he
had to specifically promise that he would go
as a doctor, not as a preacher. He famously told
them he would be mute as a carp regarding theology.
He had to promise not to talk about God so he
could go serve God. That is a level of humility
that's just hard to wrap your head around. So
he spends the next seven years getting his medical
degree. And by the way, he couldn't help himself.
While he was doing that, he wrote a thesis for
his M .D. defending Jesus's mental health against
some psychiatric critics of the day who claimed
Jesus was paranoid or had delusions. Of course
he did. He just squeezed that in between anatomy
exams. Yeah. Because why not? Finally, in 1913,
he's ready. He leaves. He heads for Lamberani
in what was then French Equatorial Africa, now
Gabon, and he doesn't go alone. His wife, Helene
Breslau, is a vital part of this story. She was
a scholar herself, but she trained as an anesthetist
specifically to go with him and help. And we
have to talk about their luggage. Yeah. Because
you don't just pack a carry -on when you're Albert
Schweitzer moving to the jungle. No, you do not.
You pack a massive zinc -lined tropical -proof
case containing a pedal piano. A pedal piano.
Explain that visual for us. What is that? It's
an upright piano that has a pedal board underneath
it, exactly like a church organ, so he could
practice his footwork for the Bach fugues. So
you have to imagine this scene. It's cinematic.
A dugout canoe. Paddling up the Ogue River into
the dense, humid rainforest, avoiding hippos
and crocodiles, carrying a future Nobel Prize
winner, his wife, and a massive piano so he can
play Bach in the jungle every evening. It is
the most perfect, absurd and beautiful image.
It captures his whole life. But once they get
there. That movie turns into a gritty survival
drama pretty fast. Yeah, I imagine so. I think
people imagine he walked into some gleaming pre
-built facility. There was no hospital, nothing.
They started treating patients in an abandoned
chicken coop. Literally. A chicken coop. That
is the definition of humble beginnings. The conditions
were just overwhelming. In the first nine months
alone, they treated 2 ,000 patients. We're talking
malaria, leprosy, sleeping sickness, which is
a horrible neurological disease, elephantiasis.
And he wasn't just battling germs. He was battling
a completely different worldview. Yes, completely.
He wrote about treating patients with a profound
fear of cannibalism from neighboring tribes or
patients who believed their illness was caused
by a curse from a family member. He was a doctor,
but also a sort of cultural negotiator. And then,
just as they get to their footing, history intervenes
again. World War I breaks out in 1914. And here
is the irony of his birthplace in Alsace coming
back to bite him. He is a German citizen living
and working in a French colony. Oh no. Suddenly,
the Grand Doctor is an enemy alien. So the French
military arrests the only doctor in the entire
region. Initially, they just put him under house
arrest. So he kept working, but with a French
soldier guarding him. But eventually, in 1917,
he and Helene were taken back to Europe as prisoners
of war. You're kidding. No. He spent time in
internment camps in France. He didn't get back
to Africa until 1924, years later. That must
have been absolutely devastating to build this
thing from nothing, from a chicken coop, and
then be dragged away because of European politics
he had nothing to do with. It was. But he was
Schweitzer. He used that time in captivity to
think and write. It's actually where he developed
his most famous philosophical idea. And when
he finally returns to Lambert in the 20s. He
rebuilds the hospital bigger this time. And this
is where we have to get into the complexity of
his legacy. Because for decades, Schweitzer was
seen as a living saint. He was the grand doctor.
But later in the 50s and 60s, people started
visiting and looking closer at the hospital and
saying, wait a minute. Right. This is a critical
part of the deep dive. We can't just do the hagiography.
What was the criticism? What were they seeing?
Visitors like the British journalist James Cameron
and later the famous Nigerian author. Chinua
Achebe, pointed out that the hospital was, well,
the word they used was squalid. Squalid. Yeah.
It lacked modern amenities. It wasn't the sterile,
white -tiled environment you'd expect from a
Western doctor. Animals roamed the grounds. It
was chaotic and, to Western eyes, dirty. Achebe
was particularly harsh about the hygiene standards
he observed. So was Schweitzer just a bad manager?
Or was he intentionally keeping it primitive
for some reason? That is the heart of the debate.
His defenders, like the American surgeon Edgar
Berman, who volunteered there for years, argued
that the squalor was a deliberate psychological
choice. What does that mean? Schweitzer believed
that if you built a terrifyingly sterile, modern
Western hospital with white walls and intimidating
beeping machines, the local villagers wouldn't
come. they would be too frightened of the place.
So he wanted it to feel like their village, not
like an alien environment. Exactly. In Schweitzer's
hospital, the patients' families lived with them
on the grounds. They cooked for them over open
fires. It was a functioning village that just
happened to offer medical care in the middle.
Berman claimed the survival rates for surgeries
rivaled Western hospitals, even without the modern
aesthetics. So it was a feature, not a bug. But
it definitely fueled the criticism that Schweizer
was stuck in the past, that he was paternalistic.
It did. And that brings us to the philosophy
that underpinned all of this. Because while he's
treating patients and fighting off driver ants
and rebuilding his hospital, he's thinking. And
he has this moment on the river that becomes
his global slogan. Reverence for life. In German,
Erfurcht vor dem Leben. That's it. And he considered
this his greatest contribution. More than the
music, more than the theology, more than the
medicine, this was his big idea. Unpack this
for us, because reverence for life sounds like
a nice bumper sticker, but I have a feeling he
meant something much more rigorous. Oh, much
more. He felt that Western civilization was decaying,
that it was on a path to self -destruction because
it had lost its ethical foundation. We were too
obsessed with technological progress and power
and not enough with basic ethics. His revelation,
which he said came to him on the Oguway River,
was simple but radical. I am life which wills
to live, and I exist in the midst of life which
wills to live. I am life which wills to live.
It's not just that I have a life, but that I
am life. It creates a solidarity between you
and every other living thing. Correct. And that's
not a coincidence. This is where he was heavily
influenced by Indian thought. Yes, specifically
Jainism and the principle of Ahimsa, or nonviolence
to all living things. He read and translated
couplets from the Tirakural, an ancient Tamil
text, and he called it lofty wisdom. The core
idea is that ethics isn't just about how you
treat other humans, it's about how you treat
everything that is alive. So how far does that
go? Does that mean he wouldn't kill a mosquito?
He tried not to. There are stories of him stopping
construction work to carefully move an ant colony
out of the way. He would gently scoop insects
out of puddles. But he's a doctor. His whole
job is killing bacteria and parasites all day
long. How do you possibly reconcile reverence
for life with treating malaria? And that was
the tragedy he wrestled with his whole life.
He acknowledged that existence is built on one
life preying on another. It's a constant, horrible
conflict. But he argued that a thinking, ethical
human should never accept that complacently.
You have to feel the weight of it. Yes. You only
kill when it is absolutely necessary for the
survival of a higher form of life, and you do
it with a sense of guilt and responsibility.
You never kill for sport, for fun, or thoughtlessly.
So it's about mindfulness. It's about recognizing
the cosmic weight of taking a life. even if it's
a small one. Exactly. And this philosophy, this
deep respect for all life, makes the next part
of our discussion even more complicated and uncomfortable.
We have to address the elephant in the room regarding
race. Yeah. There is a specific quote that always
comes up in any critique of Schweitzer. He famously
said, The African is indeed my brother, but my
junior brother. It's a painful quote to read
today, and we have to be honest about it. It
reflects a deeply paternalistic worldview. It's
awful. It is. Scheitzer believed in the inherent
dignity of every person, and he literally dedicated
his life to serving Africans. But he did not
view them as social or political equals in the
modern sense. Junior brother. It implies they
need guidance, supervision that father knows
best. Yes. He thought Japanese independence when
it came came too early. He operated with a very
colonial mindset, the benevolent European guiding
the primitive local. There's no way around that.
But and here's the contradiction that makes him
so hard to categorize. He was simultaneously
a ferocious critic of colonialism itself. He
was a blistering critic. If you read his sermons
from as early as 1905, before he even went to
Africa, he wasn't pulling any punches. He absolutely
blasted civilized men. What did he say? He talked
about how Europeans robbed indigenous people
of their land, ruined them with alcohol and disease,
and unleashed the scum of mankind upon them in
the colonies. It's incredibly strong language.
I read in one of the... sources where he called
his medical work atonement yes He saw it that
way. He believed the white race had a massive
debt of guilt to pay back to Africa for the crimes
committed. So on one hand, you have this man
who is dedicating his life to making amends for
the sins of colonialism. Right. On the other
hand, he still holds this patronizing junior
brother attitude toward the very people he's
serving. It's such a paradox. It's a reminder
that even historical saints are products of their
time. You can be a revolutionary humanitarian
and still have major, major blind spots. Absolutely.
those blind spots, the world recognized the sheer
force of his example, the sheer moral weight
of his life's work. He wins the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1952. And in true Schweitzer fashion, he doesn't
keep the money for himself. No, of course not.
He uses the entire $33 ,000 prize money to build
a proper leprosarium, a dedicated village for
patients with leprosy at Lamberina. But he didn't
just retire into the jungle after the Nobel.
He wasn't done. In his later years, he takes
on a completely new cause. The final act. The
man who started as a theologian and musician
becomes a global activist against nuclear weapons.
It makes perfect sense if you think about reverence
for life. Nuclear war is the ultimate absolute
violation of that principle. Precisely. The ultimate
disrespect for life. He worked with Albert Einstein,
Otto Hahn, the chemist who discovered nuclear
fission, and Bertrand Russell. In 1957, he broadcast
the Declaration of Conscience from Radio Oslo.
What was the message? He argued that nuclear
tests and the resulting radiation were a crime
against life itself, not just human life, but
the environment, the animals, the plants, the
future genetic code of the planet. He was talking
about environmentalism and genetic damage way
before it was a mainstream concern. Way ahead
of his time on that. And he kept working until
the very end. He died in 1965 at the age of 90,
right there in Lombardyne. At his hospital. At
his hospital. He was buried on the banks of the
Agoué River, the same river where he had his
great philosophical insight, and the marker on
his grave. It's a simple wooden cross that he
made himself. From the grand concert halls of
Paris to a simple grave by a river in Gabon.
It's an unbelievable journey. It is. And when
we try to sum up what it all means, you know,
there is a concept in medical education today
called the Schweitzer effect. The Schweitzer
effect. What is that? It comes from something
he said. Example is not the main thing in influencing
others. It is the only thing. It is the only
thing. Wow. That hits hard. It suggests that
all the books, all the sermons, all the concerts,
all the brilliant ideas, none of it matters as
much as the life you actually live. Schweitzer
once said his hospital was just an improvisation
on his philosophy. An improvisation. The hospital
was the physical manifestation of his beliefs.
It was messy. It was imperfect. But it was real.
It was action. That is a powerful place to land.
It makes you think about our own lives. We live
in this world that, as we said, tells you to
specialize, to optimize, to talk a big game on
social media. And here's a guy who said, no,
I'm going to do music. I'm going to do God. I'm
going to do science and service. And I'm going
to tie them all together into one messy, beautiful,
contradictory life of action. And even if the
results were imperfect, even if we look back
and rightly critique his paternalism or his hospital
standards, the sheer gravity of that action is
undeniable. He challenged the fragmentation of
the modern world by showing that a life of thought
must eventually lead to a life of action. So
I guess here's the question for you listening
right now. In a world that tells you to pick
a lane, what would it look like to bridge those
divides in your own life? What does it look like
to turn your philosophy, whatever it is, into
an improvisation of service? Everyone can have
their own La Marina. It might not be in a jungle
in Africa. It might be right down the street.
You just have to find it. Thanks for diving deep
with us. We'll see you next time.