Jane Goodall was on Fareed Zakaria’s CNN program “GPS.” The video[1] and the transcript[2] are available online. Here is Jane’s explanation when Mr. Zakaria questions her about the little stuffed toy that she carries with her where ever she goes:

GOODALL: I call him Mr. H. He was given to me 28 years ago by a man named Gary Horn. Gary was blinded at age 21, in the U.S. Marines. He decided to become a magician. Everybody said, "Gary, how can you be a magician if you're blind?" He said, "Well, I can try." He does shows for kids. They don't know he's blind. At the end he'll say, "Something might go wrong in your life. You never know. But if it does, don't give up. There's always a way forward." He does scuba diving; he does skydiving. He's taught himself to paint, blind—never painted before.

Anyway, he thought he was giving me a stuffed chimpanzee for my birthday, and I made him hold the tail. "Chimps don't have tails, Gary," I told him. And he said, "Never mind. Take him everywhere you go, and you’ll know my spirit's with you."

So [Mr. H.] is my symbol for the indomitable human spirit, the people that you hear about, the people I meet who tackle what seems impossible and won't give up. And, you know, there are icons, Nelson Mandela, who emerged from 17 years of hard, physical labor and had the amazing ability to forgive, so that he and de Klerk [worked together] to end the evil regime of apartheid [in South Africa].

All around us, there are people tackling personal problems, or environmental disasters, big [problems] or small ones, and either succeeding or inspiring other people to join them in the battle. And I think the most important thing, every single one of us—everyone in this audience, every single person who's listening—we all have that indomitable spirit, but we don't always recognize it and we don't always feed it. We don't always grow it. We don't always let it out into the world to do good, to inspire, to take action. [End of excerpt]

Jane Goodall works to save chimpanzees and to preserve our tropical forests, She lives up to Mr. H’s expectations. “There’s always a way forward,” she knows. And we’ll find it.


Image: Photo of my computer screen taken as I viewed Jane on CNN’s GPS (1/27/19)

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/sports/jane-goodalls-gps-interview-in-full/vi-BBSNBD3 (1/27/19)
[2] http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1901/27/fzgps.01.html (full show, may be in “rush” format)