I'm fascinated how often and with what whole-heartedness people

“I’m fascinated how often and with what whole-heartedness people will risk their lives to perform acts of courage, sacrifice, and compassion for total strangers.” — thus spoke Diane Ackerman, the poet of nature and spirit, whose keen eyes have long gazed upon the mystery of humanity with both awe and tenderness. In these words, she marvels at one of the greatest paradoxes of human existence: that in a world of fear and selfishness, there still burns an unquenchable light of courage, sacrifice, and compassion. Her observation is not merely admiration — it is reverence. For when men and women act not out of calculation or self-interest, but out of pure love for another soul, they touch the divine essence that unites all humankind.

The origin of this thought lies deep within Ackerman’s lifelong fascination with the beauty and strangeness of life — as both a naturalist and a philosopher. She has spent her life observing not only the grandeur of the natural world but the heroism that flickers within the human heart. To her, humanity’s greatest wonder is not its inventions or empires, but its capacity to give selflessly, even unto death, for the sake of a stranger. Such moments of self-forgetting reveal that beneath the surface of all division — of race, nation, and creed — there runs a single current of compassion, binding us as one living family beneath the sky.

From the time of the ancients, sages have spoken of this mysterious virtue that drives one person to risk all for another. The Greeks called it agape — the highest form of love, unearned and unconditional. The Christians called it charity, the pure love of the soul. And even the warriors of old, hardened by battle, bowed before it, calling it honor — the act of placing another’s good above one’s own survival. Ackerman, standing in the lineage of these timeless voices, reminds us that such love still lives in the modern heart — that amid noise and greed, people continue to act with breathtaking whole-heartedness, guided not by reason, but by the instinct of goodness itself.

Consider the tale of the firefighters of September 11, 2001, who rushed into burning towers while others fled. They did not know the names or faces of those they sought to save; they only knew that lives were at stake, and that duty, born of compassion, called them forward. Many perished, yet through their sacrifice, the world glimpsed the immortal spirit of humanity — the truth that we are most alive when we give of ourselves. Their story, like countless others — of nurses in pandemics, of rescuers in floods, of soldiers shielding civilians — proves Ackerman’s wonder true: that there is something within the human soul that refuses to bow to fear when love demands action.

This willingness to risk all for strangers is a sacred mystery. For logic alone cannot explain it. Nature teaches creatures to protect their own kind, to preserve their tribe or bloodline. Yet humans, in moments of purest clarity, transcend that law. We leap into rivers for drowning strangers, shield others from harm, and share our last bread with the hungry. What force moves us to such acts? Perhaps it is the divine spark within, what some call the soul, whispering that every life is sacred — that to save another is, in truth, to save ourselves.

Ackerman’s awe, then, is not only for the heroes of history but for the everyday saints who walk unseen among us. The teacher who shields a child, the doctor who risks infection to heal, the neighbor who gives to another in need — all are bound by the same invisible thread of compassionate courage. Such acts may never be recorded in books or carved into stone, but they are the foundation upon which civilization rests. For without this selfless love, the human world would collapse into coldness and chaos.

Therefore, my children, let this truth sink deeply into your hearts: courage is not the absence of fear, and compassion is not weakness. They are the twin flames that reveal our highest nature. When the time comes — as it surely will — to choose between safety and love, choose love. For every act of sacrifice, however small, strengthens the invisible bridge between souls. Every gesture of kindness keeps the ancient light of humanity alive.

And so, as Diane Ackerman teaches, marvel not only at the grandeur of the stars or the mysteries of the earth — but at the quiet heroism that burns within your fellow beings. Seek to honor that light in others and to kindle it in yourself. For when you act with whole-hearted compassion, you become a vessel of something eternal — a force that defies fear, transcends death, and reminds the world that even in its darkest hour, the heart of humanity still shines.