--- title: The Influencers: Jennifer Egan and Sylvia Earle | TIME description: Author, Jennifer Egan and marine biologist Sylvia Earle talk about exploring new worlds, both real and fictional. canonical: https://time.com/video/qTkfHgEr/ og:title: The Influencers: Jennifer Egan and Sylvia Earle og:description: Author, Jennifer Egan and marine biologist Sylvia Earle talk about exploring new worlds, both real and fictional. og:url: https://time.com/video/qTkfHgEr/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/qTkfHgEr/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Influencers: Jennifer Egan and Sylvia Earle twitter:description: Author, Jennifer Egan and marine biologist Sylvia Earle talk about exploring new worlds, both real and fictional. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/qTkfHgEr/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # The Influencers: Jennifer Egan and Sylvia Earle > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The Influencers: Jennifer Egan and Sylvia Earle [Watch (HLS stream): The Influencers: Jennifer Egan and Sylvia Earle](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/qTkfHgEr.m3u8) (6:34)  _Published 2017-10-06. Author, Jennifer Egan and marine biologist Sylvia Earle talk about exploring new worlds, both real and fictional._ --- Oct 12, 2023 8:00 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [FIRSTS Sylvia Earle ](/video/JXZkenR7/) ### FIRSTS Sylvia Earle [TIME 100: Jennifer Egan](/video/Wa8BConl/) ### TIME 100: Jennifer Egan [Saving Our Oceans: Sylvia Earle](/video/bEwWnBUO/) ### Saving Our Oceans: Sylvia Earle --- ## Transcript I think diving is a very sexy world. [ LAUGH ] [ LAUGH ] Of course it has historically been sexist. Yeah. It's a guy's world, really is. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] How about if I pour us [ UNKNOWN ]. I would love to hear how you began diving. Because I've invented a diver, but I have never even scuba dived. I know nothing about it from a visceral perspective, and I'd love to hear how you began to do that. I think we have a date underwater. My gosh, I might have to snorkel. That's all I can do. You are very convincing in your description of what it's like to not only get into the heavy gear as they call the old fashioned canvas suit with the weighted shoes and the weighted belt and that heavy helmet. That presses into your shoulders, bites into your shoulders. And it sounds as though you've been there, done that. I did just make it up, but part of it was that I talked to a lot of divers and I fell in with a group of army veteran divers They're a very tight group and they have a reunion every two years and one of the features if their reunion is any diver who wants to can put on the mark five and dive in the tank. So that's a fun thing to do because they're just remembering the old equipment. So that was how I had the chance to wear the dress. What made you first want to do it? It's the life in the ocean. [ MUSIC ] When I was a teenager, my next door neighbor was a sponge diver. I borrowed just the helmet and put the compressor on the bank of the river, and then each of us took turns just trying. What it was like to put it on. And I thought this would be a great way for me to go and see the fish up close and personal. [ MUSIC ] What we have done to life in the oceans since I began diving is catastrophic. Do you eat fish? I used to when I didn't know what I now know. Knowing is a terrible thing or a good thing. You don't enjoy it anymore. You cannot unknow. Well, I know why. I know why a live fish has value that transcends a fish on my plate. But that just comes from Thinking like a fish, or thinking like a tree, or thinking like any other human being. You empathize. Yeah, well once you really engage with the thought of another consciousness. Right. I think it becomes Very hard to exert power. I think I told you I hate your book because I can't put it down. I love your description of Lydia. Where there's this person who's obviously intelligent, aware, can't communicate. Your sympathy and your love Of that character and how you portray how other people engage with Lidya. .> It's real interesting. It's very moving. THere's this presumption that because someone or something can't communicate in the way we're used to that that person or thing is beneath us somehow. They have no feelings. Yeah, and just the engagement with another consciousness, it is so deep and profound. [ MUSIC ] All creatures transform the world around them, birds do, elephants do, earthworms do. But no creature is more comprehensive And the impact on the world than humans. And mostly in the last 200 years and especially in the last 50 or so. How do you keep your spirits up and your energy amidst that sense of great change? Like you, I have kids. And I can't not do everything possible to have the world be at least as good as the world we've experienced. And humans have the capacity to change the nature of nature. And that also is good. Because we can change in a positive way. We can change the capacity of earth to generate oxygen to capture carbon. I am going to try to remember to mention that to my sons because what they feel and they are 14 and 16 is that it is hopeless. No don't tell them ever I would never tell them that. That is what they are absorbing from the world around them. They feel like You know, the planet is doomed, no one's doing anything about it. And so, they feel really hopeless. Which, I think is just an interesting, I mean, I'm sorry about it for them. But I also find it interesting that that's how this is playing out for teenagers right now. A lot of those people give up at the time that, as ever before, we need to, Give out and we will take our power and use it. We all have power when people do clean up the place and stop killing things left right and center, recovery is possible. You can't go back to the way it was 1, 000 or 100 or even 5 years ago, but you can make things better than they otherwise would be. It's this problem of human nature that I think about all the time as a Writer. I'm always thinking about the ways that people don't add up, and one of the things that's always so interesting that I think speaks to this issue of whether humans will step up and do what we need to do is that We have this ability to see ourselves from a distance. And yet self interest is such a huge part of how we make decisions day by day and moment by moment. And it's such a strange contrast, it's sort of the crux of what makes being a human being so strange. We have these minds that can can see it all, and yet we want that cookie. And sometimes, doing the right thing for the bigger picture, it means no cookie. And that seems to be really hard for us. It'll taste better later, because you'll be alive. [ LAUGHS ] [ MUSIC ] ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Influencers: Jennifer Egan and Sylvia Earle","description":"Author, Jennifer Egan and marine biologist Sylvia Earle talk about exploring new worlds, both real and fictional.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/qTkfHgEr/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-10-06T16:08:41.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/qTkfHgEr.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/qTkfHgEr/","duration":"PT6M34S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/qTkfHgEr/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```