Let me start off by expressing my gratitude to Miguel for giving me this opportunity to address an audience qualitatively different from my average fans, although I love them too, make no mistake about it; I would also like to wish Miguel a very happy birthday – many more, Mig.

There’s another thing I’d like to get off my chest before moving on to my main essay today. I was listening yesterday to a CD by the young cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras playing Britten (in the series “Les Nouveaux Interpretes”) and all I can say is, fantastic pizzicato. He’s a promising young talent and if you get a chance to listen to his work, I recommend him highly. He’s inspiring and reminds you of the innate sublimity of life, despite the world at large.

I just had to say that, sorry. What I wanted to mention today, though, was my view of the family. I see it less as a collection of individuals in a more or less successful equilibrium; rather, I see these same individuals as a mere cross-section of the family, which I view as a whole nother organism, a historical machine with the function of transmitting characteristics through time. What the end destination is I cannot venture to say; and you will also notice that I use the term “characteristics” deliberately, and not “genes”, since genes are merely one way of transmitting characteristics from individual to individual, from generation to generation. There are also learned characteristics of behavior and perception that travel through generations, things like world view and sense of humor are passed on just as much as hair color or morphology.

The normal view of the family – father, mother, children, perhaps grandparents etc – is merely one brief cross section of a river, as I see it. In my view, the family would be the entire river, flowing through time. Changing as it flows – growing deeper and broader and richer. You can get a sense of this looking at old photographs that show various generations of the same family, or if you are fortunate enough to have a family where several generations are still alive, at a family reunion.

I have no conclusion to draw from this yet, other than that we are more closely connected than we often think; that we are not as discrete from one another as we are often led to believe, for all our independence much of our selves are given to us by preceding generations. It is good to know what we are up against as we strive to improve ourselves; likewise, it is good to be aware of our responsibility when we deal with children. Not only parents, anyone in a child’s environment contributes something to that child’s development, to an unforseeable degree, because so much is taught and learned by example.

So when I wish you all a happy Mother’s Day, I wish it to all of you, to all mothers, first and foremost, but also to anyone else who ever gave love or solace to a child or support to a child. Thank you.