Touch quotes

Jake

[voiceover] The threads that connect us are not bound by space and time. What seems to the individual like a twist of fate, from another perspective is simply one of those threads pulled tight. How things should have been all along. And even when those threads seem irreparably frayed, they never break – not completely. But sometimes the most important connection is here and now.

Jake

[voiceover] 89 degrees, 15 minutes and 50.8 seconds. That's the current position of Polaris, the northern star. Viewed from another planet, it's just one among many. But on earth, it's uniquely important. Fixed in place, an anchor, no matter where you are in the northern hemisphere, if you face Polaris, you face north. You know where you are. But there are other ways to get lost. And the choices we make and the events that overwhelm us, even in our own minds, what can be our anchor then? What beacon can we turn to, to guide us from darkness into light? What if it's other people; the lives that touch our own, in ways big and small? Because unlike Polaris, the light they bring will never fade.

Jake

[voiceover] Numbers are constant. Until they're not. Our inability to influence outcome is the great equalizer. Makes the world fair. Computers generate random numbers in an attempt to glean meaning out of probability. Endless numerical sequences, lacking any pattern. During cataclysmic global events... tsunami, earthquake, the attacks on 9/11... these random numbers suddenly stop being random. As our collective consciousness synchronizes, so do the numbers. Science can't explain the phenomenon, but religion does. It's called prayer. A collective request, sent up in unison. A shared hope. Numbers are constant, until they're not.

Jake

[voiceover] During cataclysmic global events, our collective consciousness synchronizes. So do the numeric sequences created by random number generators. Science can't explain the phenomenon, but religion does. It's called prayer. A collective request sent up in unison, a shared hope, fear relieved, a life spared. Numbers are constant... until they're not. In times of tragedy... times of collective joy, in these brief moments, it is only the shared emotional experience that makes the world seem less random. Maybe it's coincidence. And maybe it's the answer to our prayers.

Jake

[voiceover] They say that the shortest path between two points is a straight line. But what happens if that path gets blocked? When sediment impedes the flow of a river, it redirects, zigging and zagging instead of following a straight course. What looks to the crow like meandering, is to the water the most efficient route from source to outlet. Nature finds a detour. When two points are destined to touch, but a direct connection is impossible, the universe will always find another way.

Jake

[voiceover] If two points are destined to touch, the universe will always find a way to make the connection. Even when all hope seems lost, certain ties cannot be broken. They define who we are and who we can become. Across space, across time, along paths we cannot predict- nature always finds a way.

Jake

[voiceover] The earth, as it rotates, emits a frequency - a musical note at 7.83 Hz, but this frequency alters slightly from reasons as yet uncertain. Some postulates solar flares as its cause or electrical disturbance in the atmosphere. But maybe there's a simpler explanation. Maybe the sound of the planet is influenced by the 7B souls whirring around it. Each producing their own music, adding their own harmony.

Jake

[voiceover] The chromatic scale consists of 12 tones arranged in time and sequence. These 12 simple tones create an infinite variety of music. Harmony and dissonance. Tension and resolution. All can be described by the mathematical ratios between tones. If we could translate all ratios into sound, we can hear the Music of the Spheres. A sound as immense, as powerful as the universe itself. As quiet as a single stone. As beguiling as the human heart. For some, music elevates the spirit to a place of transcendent beauty. Others simply hear the beauty in the numbers themselves.

Jake

[voiceover] Symmetry is the language of the universe. It is written in mathematical language and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures. Without which it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word. But some of us can speak it; we see the precise patterns – the tessellations. Those geometric shapes rotated and reflected, infinitely repeated. And when you speak the language, follow the logic you can predict the next step. You just have to trust in where the paths meet.

Jake

[voiceover] We are all a part of this infinite tessellation; each a single cell in a honeycomb. And though individual pieces of this puzzle may never physically touch, they all form part of that same grand mosaic. Like bricks in a wall, the whole is made stronger by each brick. Remove one and it all comes crumbling down. Though we may not realize it, the integrity of this wall is tested daily. But the wall holds. Because of everyone's collective support.

Jake

[voiceover] In 1992, a shipping container fell overboard on its way from China to the United States, losing 29,000 rubber ducks in the Pacific Ocean. Ten months later, the first of these rubber ducks was washed ashore on the Alaskan Coast. Since then, these ducks have been found in Hawaii, South America, Australia, and travelling slowly inside the Arctic Ice. But 2,000 of the ducks were caught up in the North Pacific Gyre. A vortex of currents moving between Japan, Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and the Aleutian Islands. Items that get caught in the gyre usually stay in the gyre. Doomed to travel the same path, forever circling in the same waters, but not always. Their paths can be altered by a change in the weather, a storm at sea, a chance encounter with a pod of whales, Twenty years after the rubber ducks were lost at sea, they are still arriving on beaches around the world. And the number of ducks in the gyre has decreased, which means it's possible to break free, even after years of circling the same waters. It's possible to find a way to shore.

Jake

[voiceover] There are 31,530,000 seconds in a year, a thousand milliseconds in a second, a million microseconds, a billion nanoseconds. And the one constant connecting nanoseconds to years is change. The universe, from atom to galaxy, is in a perpetual state of flux. But we humans don't like change; we fight it, it scares us. So we create the illusion of stasis. We want to believe in a world at rest, the world of right now yet our great paradox remains the same. The moment we grasp the now that now is gone. We cling to snapshots, but life is moving pictures, each nanosecond different from the last. Time forces us to grow, to adapt because every time we blink our eyes the world shifts beneath our feet. Every day, every moment, every nanosecond the world changes. Electrons bump into each other and react; people collide and alter each other's paths. Change isn't easy, more often it's wrenching and difficult, but maybe that's a good thing, because it's change that makes us strong, keeps us resilient, and teaches us to evolve.

You really expect me to believe you had nothing to do with this?

Jake escaped. He's done it before.

If you know where they are, Clea, you are aiding and abetting. You can go to jail for a long time.

I could go to jail? You look scared, Sheri. Whoever it is you're working for must be very unhappy about all this.

I want you out of here now.

I was just on my way. You're a criminal, Sheri. I know you're working for Aster Corp, I know you had Amelia hidden in Room 6, and I know that Arthur Teller's death wasn't an accident.

I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about.

Then I guess you got nothing to worry about.

Jake

[voiceover] We can't help but wonder how much difference one person makes in the world. We look inside ourselves, questioning if we have the capacity for heroism and greatness. But the truth is every time we take an action, we make an impact. Every single thing we do has an effect on the people around us. Every choice we make sends ripples out into the world. Our smallest acts of kindness can cause a chain reaction of unforeseen benefits for people we've never met. We might not witness those results, but they happen all the same.

Jake

[voiceover] The point when all things are possible; the moment when a choice was made or an action taken; the breath inhaled before a first step forward. And the most lasting chain reactions that are started by those moments. And actions and choices are always the ones that are started by love.