This is a busy year in our world. And it’s now an even busier season. With elections coming up here in the US, it is clear that there is much at stake for our country’s reputation and future prosperity.

And then I pause and wonder. I think back to a random YouTube video I saw a few months ago on trying to facilitate more registration of voters here in the US. The actor/director of the homemade film deadpans the camera near the end and says, “And if you are under 18 you cannot vote … but you DO matter. Now because of the Internet, everyone’s voice can now be heard.” I recall feeling extremely optimistic when he said that. Everyone now matters. Because everyone can now be heard.

A similar thing happened to me today. I was Googling something and then for a moment I wondered to myself, “What if Google were to disappear for some reason? Would the Web vanish into thin air?” And then I quickly realized, no. Because the Web is not about a single entity. It is about a cooperative network of computers that are all connected across the globe. The computers have meaning because We, the people are now tightly connected together through these devices. We are a strong world today because we can now connect with each other in ways that were simply impossible before. Across time and space. With nothing more than a few presses of the button.

We, the people now hold our own destinies in our own hands. The hands you look at as they sit in front of you — left and right hands. They are not your only hands anymore. You now have the hands of millions of people out there that are indirectly connected to your mind through this new medium of communication you currently behold.

Twenty years ago I recall the monumental Hands Across America experiment. The intention was to show how we are all linked across the country in an important symbiotic way. Today, and every day, our hands, and minds, are all connected across the entire world in a cooperative fashion as a literal form of “Hands Across the World.”

Today I ask you to think about the many people “around” you that are there at their computer or mobile phone connecting to the ideas that surround us constantly. And how everyone knows how everyone else is no longer a lonely individual when they can opt-in to connecting with the landscape of thought available for free and 24/7 over the Web. That we are all tied together and stronger for it. That we will not let each other down, nor will we let down the world, because we *together* are the indomitable strength of our world.