The instructor stands at the front of the class,
next to an apple.
For a demonstration, he leans down
very close,
and takes a deep breath through his nose.
Then he asks,
"Did I do anything?"
A very vague question.
A simple student answers, his call rising about the crowd's whispers,
"You didn't do anything!"
The instructor chuckles.
"Anyone else?"
Apparently not, as no one broke the silence.
"Well," the instructor continues, "Although it seems to you that i have done nothing, changed nothing, altered nothing, I have in fact done an infinite number of things."
"You chose to take my question as, 'Did I do anything to the apple?' but in that case, you would still have been wrong."
"Let's think of this at a molecular level; my nose did indeed move air, correct? Well if my nose moved the air, it must have disturbed at the very least, some of the molecules on the apple. And on a larger scale, I smelled the apple, yes? Well if i smelled the apple, some of it's particles entered my nose. If some of it's particles entered my nose, then, in fact, my brain reacted to them. My brain felt an activation of sensory nerve cells when axon after axon was activated. My body carried the electric charges to my brain, and activated their sensory neurons, in turn."
"And on an even larger scale than that, when I smelt the apple, some of the students inside this class, missing breakfast I presume, felt a rumble in their stomachs, or even just thought about the idea of food. Even if you were not hungry, you thought on a preconscious level about the food you had already eaten."
"Furthermore, your brain worked to identify this object sitting in front of me, identify me, and identify the action I performed."
"Do not take this for granted."
"Because some people in this world, cannot identify objects or remember faces.
Some people in this world, cannot smell.
Some people in this world, cannot feel hunger.
Some people in this world do not understand the concept of molecules.
But some people in this world, are not you."
"You have the ability to do..anything."
"What I am trying to teach at this moment, is that everything you do, changes something."
"Whether that something is big or small, or nothing at all, is up for you to decide."