0:00:13.079,0:00:16.709
So, I know most people [br]are terrified of death,

0:00:16.709,0:00:18.938
but I’m terrified of cocktail parties.

0:00:19.458,0:00:21.878
(Laughter)

0:00:22.378,0:00:24.968
I'm not much good[br]at the usual social chatter,

0:00:24.968,0:00:27.168
so if you put a couple[br]of drinks inside me,

0:00:27.168,0:00:29.559
there's no knowing [br]what I might come out with.

0:00:29.559,0:00:31.210
(Laughter)

0:00:31.750,0:00:34.123
Like what happened at one such event,

0:00:34.123,0:00:37.079
halfway into a second martini.

0:00:37.919,0:00:39.419
I got into a conversation

0:00:39.419,0:00:43.140
with an ardent fan [br]of the "end to aging" movement -

0:00:43.510,0:00:47.440
you know, the vision[br]of a radically enhanced life span

0:00:47.440,0:00:51.780
big with Silicon Valley billionaires[br]who think they should never die.

0:00:52.921,0:00:55.018
One of them was actually[br]boasting at the time

0:00:55.018,0:00:59.485
that he was taking[br]150 nutritional supplements a day

0:00:59.485,0:01:01.745
to ward off death -

0:01:02.597,0:01:05.568
an activity that must have consumed[br]the better part of an hour,

0:01:05.568,0:01:07.685
let alone the lining of a stomach.

0:01:08.125,0:01:10.038
(Laughter)

0:01:10.458,0:01:11.708
The guy I was talking with

0:01:11.708,0:01:14.768
didn't seem to think[br]there was anything weird about this.

0:01:15.838,0:01:17.478
He was about half my age -

0:01:17.838,0:01:19.738
less than half, in fact.

0:01:19.938,0:01:24.566
And since death was clearly more of[br]an imminent reality for me than for him,

0:01:24.566,0:01:29.378
he made the mistake of assuming[br]that I'd be living in mortal fear of it.

0:01:30.228,0:01:32.508
He seemed quite shocked that I wasn't.

0:01:33.028,0:01:35.678
In fact, he seemed to take my[br]equanimity of the prospect

0:01:35.678,0:01:39.487
as an admission of some kind [br]of failure on my part.

0:01:40.597,0:01:44.168
“How can you accept limits[br]that don't have to be there?" he said.

0:01:44.168,0:01:46.768
"Biotechnology could mean an end to aging;

0:01:46.768,0:01:50.427
it could even mean[br]an end to death itself."

0:01:51.657,0:01:53.961
And that’s when it came out.

0:01:53.961,0:01:57.068
(Laughter)

0:01:58.808,0:02:02.528
"But what's wrong with dying?" I said.

0:02:04.238,0:02:06.488
The question startled him into silence,

0:02:06.488,0:02:09.038
and the truth is it startled me too.

0:02:09.832,0:02:12.665
I'd never thought to ask[br]this specific question before.

0:02:12.845,0:02:14.667
I never put it quite so bluntly,

0:02:14.667,0:02:16.447
but now that it was out there -

0:02:16.447,0:02:19.357
hovering in the alcoholic [br]fumes between us -

0:02:19.357,0:02:22.187
(Laughter)

0:02:23.037,0:02:25.369
it seemed to cut [br]to the heart of the matter

0:02:25.919,0:02:30.629
because it's taken for granted [br]that we're all afraid of death.

0:02:31.458,0:02:33.698
Ask people if they are -

0:02:33.698,0:02:35.112
and I have asked,

0:02:35.112,0:02:37.471
though not usually at parties -

0:02:37.471,0:02:40.795
and most would say, "Yes, of course!"

0:02:40.795,0:02:44.725
and look like they'd rather be[br]anywhere but in the same room as you.

0:02:45.765,0:02:47.974
There was psychologist William James,

0:02:47.974,0:02:50.774
who called death "the evil background,"

0:02:50.774,0:02:55.443
and "the worm at the core [br]of human aspirations to happiness."

0:02:56.453,0:02:58.074
Or with poet Philip Larkin,

0:02:58.074,0:03:00.634
who was very good [br]at worms at the core of things

0:03:01.284,0:03:03.286
and wrote of lying awake in terror

0:03:03.286,0:03:06.866
of what he called[br]the "total emptiness forever."

0:03:08.619,0:03:12.145
But it turns out, I’m as bad [br]at things taken for granted

0:03:12.145,0:03:14.515
as I am at cocktail parties.

0:03:15.061,0:03:18.408
When something seems so obvious[br]it's beyond question,

0:03:18.408,0:03:21.476
that's when I tend to start questioning;

0:03:22.206,0:03:24.426
because what we take for granted

0:03:24.437,0:03:29.037
may really be what we haven't taken[br]the time to think through.

0:03:30.867,0:03:32.158
I guess you could say

0:03:32.158,0:03:35.874
I haven't had much option but to think[br]through the matter of my own death

0:03:35.874,0:03:38.493
since I've come pretty close to it[br]a number of times.

0:03:39.131,0:03:42.582
In the Middle-East, I was shot at[br]on a journalistic assignment,

0:03:42.582,0:03:44.231
bombed as a civilian,

0:03:44.231,0:03:46.621
threatened by right-wing thugs.

0:03:47.353,0:03:51.532
But the closest I've come[br]was entirely my own doing.

0:03:52.382,0:03:54.418
I lost control of a car

0:03:54.418,0:03:58.561
on turn three of a race track[br]in the American Midwest,

0:03:58.561,0:04:01.195
and with what seemed immense slowness

0:04:01.195,0:04:03.417
rolled over,

0:04:03.417,0:04:07.247
and over, and - yes - over again.

0:04:08.337,0:04:12.611
And as I rolled, a single sentence[br]reverberated in my mind,

0:04:12.611,0:04:15.194
like some kind of mantra.

0:04:15.704,0:04:21.424
"This", I kept thinking,[br]"is a really stupid way to die."

0:04:21.424,0:04:23.851
(Laughter)

0:04:29.619,0:04:30.619
My first reaction

0:04:30.619,0:04:33.473
when the car came to a stop[br]and I found myself still alive

0:04:33.473,0:04:34.882
was amazement,

0:04:34.882,0:04:36.532
followed by a surge of gratitude

0:04:36.532,0:04:39.790
to whoever it was [br]who invented the crash helmet.

0:04:39.790,0:04:40.897
(Laughter)

0:04:40.897,0:04:43.069
So, it only occurred to me later to ask,

0:04:43.069,0:04:47.259
"What exactly would have been[br]so stupid about dying this way?"

0:04:47.764,0:04:51.082
I mean, what might I consider[br]an intelligent way to die?

0:04:51.082,0:04:52.690
(Laughter)

0:04:53.530,0:04:56.558
Why was I even asking[br]such a question in the first place?

0:04:56.978,0:05:01.546
To which my only answer was:[br]intellectual vanity.

0:05:03.066,0:05:07.685
I mean, surely I was[br]far too intelligent to die stupidly.

0:05:07.685,0:05:10.567
(Laughter)

0:05:13.337,0:05:17.106
It seems that not only is my life[br]immensely significant to me,

0:05:17.106,0:05:19.207
but so too is my death -

0:05:19.737,0:05:21.418
even though if I was dead,

0:05:21.418,0:05:25.208
I wouldn’t be around to appreciate[br]the significance of that fact.

0:05:25.578,0:05:28.539
In fact, I wouldn't be around[br]to appreciate anything at all,

0:05:29.009,0:05:31.699
which makes it a good thing[br]I'm not religious;

0:05:32.486,0:05:35.615
because then, apparently,[br]I would be around

0:05:35.615,0:05:39.107
in something called "the afterlife."

0:05:40.177,0:05:44.876
And this is, to put it mildly,[br]a sobering thought to live with;

0:05:44.876,0:05:48.321
since the idea is not only [br]that you never really die,

0:05:48.321,0:05:50.850
but that what you do in this life

0:05:50.850,0:05:55.030
determines your fate[br]in a hypothetical next one.

0:05:55.783,0:05:58.738
In other words,[br]the life you're actually living

0:05:58.738,0:06:02.122
has no intrinsic value in and of itself;

0:06:02.782,0:06:04.722
or actually, not in other words

0:06:04.722,0:06:08.635
but in the words of motivational[br]mega-pastor Rick Warren,

0:06:08.635,0:06:11.035
he of The Purpose Driven Life:

0:06:12.010,0:06:13.688
"Earth," he says -

0:06:14.438,0:06:16.568
and I'm not making this up -

0:06:17.088,0:06:24.498
"Earth is the staging area, the preschool,[br]the tryout for your life in eternity."

0:06:27.432,0:06:30.122
Life as a practice session?

0:06:30.697,0:06:33.434
I mean, that's one way [br]to utterly trivialize it.

0:06:33.854,0:06:35.154
And here’s another;

0:06:35.154,0:06:39.434
because what’s on offer from[br]the Silicon Valley apostles of immortality

0:06:39.675,0:06:43.051
really comes down to a secular [br]version of the same thing.

0:06:43.441,0:06:45.566
Even if for them you stay in your body

0:06:45.566,0:06:49.392
instead of evaporating[br]into some kind of disembodied state.

0:06:50.032,0:06:54.484
And so, we have [br]Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel

0:06:54.484,0:06:58.004
saying - and I quote -

0:06:58.004,0:07:02.285
"If people think they're going to die,[br]it's demotivating."

0:07:02.765,0:07:05.403
(Laughter)

0:07:06.353,0:07:07.517
There's more!

0:07:08.107,0:07:09.247
(Laughter)

0:07:09.687,0:07:15.687
"The idea of immortality," [br]he says, "is motivational."

0:07:18.785,0:07:22.929
As one of those people absurd enough[br]to imagine she's going to die,

0:07:22.929,0:07:26.806
I find Thiel's glibness astonishing.

0:07:26.806,0:07:31.286
He reduces human existence[br]to the language of corporate management,

0:07:32.303,0:07:34.483
to motivational path.

0:07:35.423,0:07:39.073
He seems to think our lives are[br]invalidated by the fact that we'll die,

0:07:39.840,0:07:44.425
and he assumes that life[br]is a matter of what else but metrics;

0:07:44.807,0:07:48.967
its value determined by something[br]as easy to calculate as years.

0:07:49.797,0:07:53.926
In Thiel's world,[br]what gets us up in the morning

0:07:53.926,0:07:56.526
is not the enjoyment of the life[br]we're actually living,

0:07:56.526,0:08:02.006
but the hope that we'll go on[br]getting up in the morning forever.

0:08:04.587,0:08:07.663
I for one can think of[br]few things more depressing.

0:08:07.663,0:08:10.323
(Laughter)

0:08:13.363,0:08:15.914
(Applause)

0:08:17.034,0:08:19.607
Thiel's dream is my nightmare.

0:08:19.767,0:08:21.004
(Laughter)

0:08:21.144,0:08:22.819
And if you think about it a moment,

0:08:22.819,0:08:25.964
it might turn out to be yours too.

0:08:26.574,0:08:28.712
Let's leave aside [br]practical considerations,

0:08:28.712,0:08:31.658
like who can possibly [br]afford to live forever.

0:08:31.658,0:08:34.143
I mean, I guess that might be[br]less of a consideration

0:08:34.143,0:08:36.692
if you are a billionaire,[br]but only slightly less,

0:08:36.692,0:08:38.687
because any number of billions of dollars[br]

0:08:38.687,0:08:42.444
is still barely a drop[br]in the financial ocean of eternity.

0:08:43.224,0:08:47.014
Instead, I'd ask you to think[br]what it might mean to live forever,

0:08:47.018,0:08:51.001
what it would be like[br]to just keep on going,

0:08:51.001,0:08:54.631
like that pink toy rabbit[br]in the old commercial for batteries,

0:08:54.631,0:08:57.266
banging away on its tin drum.

0:08:57.266,0:08:58.382
(Laughter)

0:08:59.862,0:09:02.756
And in fact, we do have some idea[br]of what it would be like.

0:09:03.419,0:09:05.589
It's there in the way we talk.

0:09:06.096,0:09:08.196
When we say we sat through a lecture

0:09:08.196,0:09:11.856
that just went on and on[br]like it would never end,

0:09:12.406,0:09:15.236
or we complain of incessant chatter,

0:09:15.236,0:09:19.576
or describe a bad movie as interminable.

0:09:20.914,0:09:24.314
Consciously or not,[br]we realize that without an end,

0:09:24.314,0:09:27.324
life would become a flat,[br]featureless expanse:

0:09:27.694,0:09:32.564
just one thing after another,[br]literally ad infinitum.

0:09:33.109,0:09:36.559
Endlessness would suck [br]the vitality out of existence,

0:09:36.559,0:09:38.369
eviscerate it of meaning.

0:09:38.789,0:09:41.689
It would leave us with that sense[br]of tedium and pointlessness

0:09:41.689,0:09:44.299
that's the hallmark of chronic depression.

0:09:45.899,0:09:50.349
So the last thing I'd ever want[br]is to never die.

0:09:51.794,0:09:54.164
I have zero desire to live forever,

0:09:54.164,0:09:58.164
because immortality is not[br]something devoutly to be wished for,

0:09:58.164,0:10:01.394
on the contrary: it's a curse.

0:10:02.294,0:10:04.124
Think of Greek myth,

0:10:04.124,0:10:07.234
where Sisyphus is forever[br]rolling his boulder uphill,

0:10:07.234,0:10:08.804
never to reach the top.

0:10:09.394,0:10:11.734
Or of ghost and vampire stories,

0:10:11.734,0:10:16.054
where the walking dead are condemned[br]to spectral half lives without end.

0:10:17.055,0:10:20.095
Or even of a comic book [br]hero like Superman,

0:10:20.095,0:10:23.945
destined never to have[br]a regular Clark Kent life;

0:10:24.295,0:10:29.225
never to live, love and die[br]like a normal human being.

0:10:29.970,0:10:31.730
We need endings

0:10:32.220,0:10:35.350
because the most[br]basic ending of all is built into us:

0:10:35.880,0:10:37.510
our ability to die,

0:10:37.930,0:10:39.510
our mortality,

0:10:39.510,0:10:43.140
is a defining part[br]of what it is to be human.

0:10:43.140,0:10:46.980
We are finite beings within infinity,

0:10:46.980,0:10:49.150
and if we are alive to this,

0:10:49.150,0:10:52.790
it sharpens our appreciation[br]of the fact that we exist,

0:10:52.790,0:10:55.900
gives new depth to the idea[br]of life as a journey.

0:10:57.262,0:11:02.412
So, my mortality does not negate meaning,

0:11:02.692,0:11:04.527
it creates meaning.

0:11:04.807,0:11:06.837
It's what wakes me up to life.

0:11:06.837,0:11:07.902
It's what says,

0:11:07.902,0:11:09.302
"Appreciate it!

0:11:09.302,0:11:10.912
Don't take it for granted!

0:11:11.152,0:11:12.892
Write the next book!

0:11:13.092,0:11:14.532
Laugh with your friends!

0:11:14.762,0:11:16.082
Go explore!

0:11:16.732,0:11:18.812
Eat another dozen oysters!"

0:11:18.812,0:11:20.092
(Laughter)

0:11:20.612,0:11:23.762
Because it's not how long[br]I live that matters;

0:11:23.762,0:11:25.702
it's how I live,

0:11:26.582,0:11:28.642
and I intend to do it well -

0:11:29.669,0:11:31.049
to the end.

0:11:31.888,0:11:33.118
Thank you!

0:11:33.758,0:11:36.648
(Applause)