Krista Tippett: In Jane Goodall’s presence, I start to take delight anew in the ancient, animating, never more present questions that define our species when it grows and evolves morally, spiritually — when what Jane Goodall calls our “clever, clever brains” enable us to ask and wonder together, and accompany our children while also learning from them as they ask: who am I, and why am I here?

Consider these words of Jane Goodall that might bring light and perspective and humility and fierceness in equal measure to your imagination about your doings, your being, and the matter of hope in and for our world. She says, “I love trees. I think probably my very favorite individual tree has to be Beech, in my garden. When Beech began to grow, over 100 years ago, actually, it was from a pretty tiny seed. And if I had picked it up at that time, it would’ve seemed so small and weak, a little growing shoot and a few little roots. And yet, there is what I call magic. It’s a life force in that little seed so powerful that, to reach the water that the tree will need, those little roots can work through rocks and eventually push them aside. And that little shoot, to reach the sunlight which the tree will need for photosynthesis, can work its way through cracks in a brick wall and eventually knock it down. And so we see the bricks and the walls as all the problems, social and environmental, that we have inflicted on the planet. So it’s a message of hope — hundreds and thousands of young people around the world can break through and can make this a better world.”