What's wrong with dying? | Lesley Hazleton | TEDxSeattle
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0:13 - 0:17So, I know most people
are terrified of death, -
0:17 - 0:19but I’m terrified of cocktail parties.
-
0:19 - 0:22(Laughter)
-
0:22 - 0:25I'm not much good
at the usual social chatter, -
0:25 - 0:27so if you put a couple
of drinks inside me, -
0:27 - 0:30there's no knowing
what I might come out with. -
0:30 - 0:31(Laughter)
-
0:32 - 0:34Like what happened at one such event,
-
0:34 - 0:37halfway into a second martini.
-
0:38 - 0:39I got into a conversation
-
0:39 - 0:43with an ardent fan
of the "end to aging" movement - -
0:44 - 0:47you know, the vision
of a radically enhanced life span -
0:47 - 0:52big with Silicon Valley billionaires
who think they should never die. -
0:53 - 0:55One of them was actually
boasting at the time -
0:55 - 0:59that he was taking
150 nutritional supplements a day -
0:59 - 1:02to ward off death -
-
1:03 - 1:06an activity that must have consumed
the better part of an hour, -
1:06 - 1:08let alone the lining of a stomach.
-
1:08 - 1:10(Laughter)
-
1:10 - 1:12The guy I was talking with
-
1:12 - 1:15didn't seem to think
there was anything weird about this. -
1:16 - 1:17He was about half my age -
-
1:18 - 1:20less than half, in fact.
-
1:20 - 1:25As his death was clearly more of
an imminent reality for me than for him, -
1:25 - 1:29he made the mistake of assuming
that I'd be living in mortal fear of it. -
1:30 - 1:33He seemed quite shocked that I wasn't.
-
1:33 - 1:36In fact, he seemed to take my
equanimity of the prospect -
1:36 - 1:39as an admission of some kind
of failure on my part. -
1:41 - 1:44“How can you accept limits
that don't have to be there?" he said. -
1:44 - 1:47"Biotechnology could mean an end to aging;
-
1:47 - 1:50it could even mean
an end to death itself." -
1:52 - 1:54And that’s when it came out.
-
1:54 - 1:57(Laughter)
-
1:59 - 2:03"But what's wrong with dying?" I said.
-
2:04 - 2:06The question startled him into silence,
-
2:06 - 2:09and the truth is it startled me too.
-
2:10 - 2:13I'd never thought to ask
this specific question before. -
2:13 - 2:15I never put it quite so bluntly,
-
2:15 - 2:16but now that it was out there -
-
2:16 - 2:19hovering in the alcoholic
fumes between us - -
2:19 - 2:22(Laughter)
-
2:23 - 2:25it seemed to cut
to the heart of the matter -
2:26 - 2:31because it's taken for granted
that we're all afraid of death. -
2:31 - 2:34Ask people if they are -
-
2:34 - 2:35and I have asked,
-
2:35 - 2:37though not usually at parties -
-
2:37 - 2:41and most would say, "Yes, of course!"
-
2:41 - 2:45and look like they'd rather be
anywhere but in the same room as you. -
2:46 - 2:48There was psychologist William James,
-
2:48 - 2:51who called death "the evil background,"
-
2:51 - 2:55and "the worm at the core
of human aspirations to happiness." -
2:56 - 2:58Or with poet Philip Larkin,
-
2:58 - 3:01who was very good
at worms at the core of things -
3:01 - 3:03and wrote of lying awake in terror
-
3:03 - 3:07of what he called
the "total emptiness forever." -
3:09 - 3:12But it turns out, I’m as bad
at things taken for granted -
3:12 - 3:15as I am at cocktail parties.
-
3:15 - 3:18When something seems so obvious
it's beyond question, -
3:18 - 3:21that's when I tend to start questioning;
-
3:22 - 3:24because what we take for granted
-
3:24 - 3:29may really be what we haven't taken
the time to think through. -
3:31 - 3:32I guess you could say
-
3:32 - 3:36I haven't had much option but to think
through the matter of my own death -
3:36 - 3:38since I've come pretty close to it
a number of times. -
3:39 - 3:43In the Middle-East, I was shot at
on a journalistic assignment, -
3:43 - 3:44bombed as a civilian,
-
3:44 - 3:47threatened by right-wing thugs.
-
3:47 - 3:52But the closest I've come
was entirely my own doing. -
3:52 - 3:54I lost control of a car
-
3:54 - 3:59on turn three of a race track
in the American Midwest, -
3:59 - 4:01and with what seemed immense slowness
-
4:01 - 4:03rolled over,
-
4:03 - 4:07and over, and - yes - over again.
-
4:08 - 4:13And as I rolled, a single sentence
reverberated in my mind, -
4:13 - 4:15like some kind of mantra.
-
4:16 - 4:21"This", I kept thinking,
"is a really stupid way to die." -
4:21 - 4:24(Laughter)
-
4:30 - 4:31My first reaction
-
4:31 - 4:33when the car came to a stop
and I found myself still alive -
4:33 - 4:35was amazement,
-
4:35 - 4:37followed by a surge of gratitude
-
4:37 - 4:40to whoever it was
who invented the crash helmet. -
4:40 - 4:41(Laughter)
-
4:41 - 4:43So, it only occurred to me later to ask,
-
4:43 - 4:47"What exactly would have been
so stupid about dying this way?" -
4:48 - 4:51I mean, what might I consider
an intelligent way to die? -
4:51 - 4:53(Laughter)
-
4:54 - 4:57Why was I even asking
such a question in the first place? -
4:57 - 5:02To which my only answer was:
intellectual vanity. -
5:03 - 5:08I mean, surely I was
far too intelligent to die stupidly. -
5:08 - 5:11(Laughter)
-
5:13 - 5:17It seems that not only is my life
immensely significant to me, -
5:17 - 5:19but so too is my death -
-
5:20 - 5:21even though if I was dead,
-
5:21 - 5:25I wouldn’t be around to appreciate
the significance of that fact. -
5:26 - 5:29In fact, I wouldn't be around
to appreciate anything at all, -
5:29 - 5:32which makes it a good thing
I'm not religious; -
5:32 - 5:36because then, apparently,
I would be around -
5:36 - 5:39in something called "the afterlife."
-
5:40 - 5:45And this is, to put it mildly,
a sobering thought to live with; -
5:45 - 5:48since the idea is not only
that you never really die, -
5:48 - 5:51but that what you do in this life
-
5:51 - 5:55determines your fate
in a hypothetical next one. -
5:56 - 5:59In other words,
the life you're actually living -
5:59 - 6:02has no intrinsic value in and of itself;
-
6:03 - 6:05or actually, not in other words
-
6:05 - 6:09but in the words of motivational
mega-pastor Rick Warren, -
6:09 - 6:11he of The Purpose Driven Life:
-
6:12 - 6:14"Earth," he says -
-
6:14 - 6:17and I'm not making this up -
-
6:17 - 6:24"Earth is the staging area, the preschool,
the tryout for your life in eternity." -
6:27 - 6:30Life as a practice session?
-
6:31 - 6:33I mean, that's one way
to utterly trivialize it. -
6:34 - 6:35And here’s another;
-
6:35 - 6:39because what’s on offer from
the Silicon Valley apostles of immortality -
6:40 - 6:43really comes down to a secular
version of the same thing. -
6:43 - 6:46Even if for them you stay in your body
-
6:46 - 6:49instead of evaporating
into some kind of disembodied state. -
6:50 - 6:54And so, we have
Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel -
6:54 - 6:58saying - and I quote -
-
6:58 - 7:02"If people think they're going to die,
it's demotivating." -
7:03 - 7:05(Laughter)
-
7:06 - 7:08There's more!
-
7:08 - 7:09(Laughter)
-
7:10 - 7:16"The idea of immortality,"
he says, "is motivational." -
7:19 - 7:23As one of those people absurd enough
to imagine she's going to die, -
7:23 - 7:27I find Thiel's glibness astonishing.
-
7:27 - 7:31He reduces human existence
to the language of corporate management, -
7:32 - 7:34to motivational path.
-
7:35 - 7:39He seems to think our lives are
invalidated by the fact that we'll die, -
7:40 - 7:44and he assumes that life
is a matter of what else but metrics; -
7:45 - 7:49its value determined by something
as easy to calculate as years. -
7:50 - 7:54In Thiel's world,
what gets us up in the morning -
7:54 - 7:57is not the enjoyment of the life
we're actually living, -
7:57 - 8:02but the hope that we'll go on
getting up in the morning forever. -
8:05 - 8:08I for one can think of
few things more depressing. -
8:08 - 8:10(Laughter)
-
8:13 - 8:16(Applause)
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8:17 - 8:20Thiel's dream is my nightmare.
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8:20 - 8:21(Laughter)
-
8:21 - 8:23And if you think about it a moment,
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8:23 - 8:26it might turn out to be yours too.
-
8:27 - 8:29Let's leave aside
practical considerations, -
8:29 - 8:32like who can possibly
afford to live forever. -
8:32 - 8:34I mean, I guess that might be
less of a consideration -
8:34 - 8:37if you are a billionaire,
but only slightly less, -
8:37 - 8:39because any number of billions of dollars
-
8:39 - 8:42is still barely a drop
in the financial ocean of eternity. -
8:43 - 8:47Instead, I'd ask you to think
what it might mean to live forever, -
8:47 - 8:51what it would be like
to just keep on going, -
8:51 - 8:55like that pink toy rabbit
in the old commercial for batteries, -
8:55 - 8:57banging away on its tin drum.
-
8:57 - 8:58(Laughter)
-
9:00 - 9:03And in fact, we do have some idea
of what it would be like. -
9:03 - 9:06It's there in the way we talk.
-
9:06 - 9:08When we say we sat through a lecture
-
9:08 - 9:12that just went on and on
like it would never end, -
9:12 - 9:15or we complain of incessant chatter,
-
9:15 - 9:20or describe a bad movie as interminable.
-
9:21 - 9:24Consciously or not,
we realize that without an end, -
9:24 - 9:27life would become a flat,
featureless expanse: -
9:28 - 9:33just one thing after another,
literally ad infinitum. -
9:33 - 9:37Endlessness would suck
the vitality out of existence, -
9:37 - 9:38eviscerate it of meaning.
-
9:39 - 9:42It would leave us with that sense
of tedium and pointlessness -
9:42 - 9:44that's the hallmark of chronic depression.
-
9:46 - 9:50So the last thing I'd ever want
is to never die. -
9:52 - 9:54I have zero desire to live forever,
-
9:54 - 9:58because immortality is not
something devoutly to be wished for, -
9:58 - 10:01on the contrary: it's a curse.
-
10:02 - 10:04Think of Greek myth,
-
10:04 - 10:07where Sisyphus is forever
rolling his boulder uphill, -
10:07 - 10:09never to reach the top.
-
10:09 - 10:12Or of ghost and vampire stories,
-
10:12 - 10:16where the walking dead are condemned
to spectral half lives without end. -
10:17 - 10:20Or even of a comic book
hero like Superman, -
10:20 - 10:24destined never to have
a regular Clark Kent life; -
10:24 - 10:29never to live, love and die
like a normal human being. -
10:30 - 10:32We need endings
-
10:32 - 10:35because the most
basic ending of all is built into us: -
10:36 - 10:38our ability to die,
-
10:38 - 10:40our mortality,
-
10:40 - 10:43is a defining part
of what it is to be human. -
10:43 - 10:47We are finite beings within infinity,
-
10:47 - 10:49and if we are alive to this,
-
10:49 - 10:53it sharpens our appreciation
of the fact that we exist, -
10:53 - 10:56gives new depth to the idea
of life as a journey. -
10:57 - 11:02So, my mortality does not negate meaning,
-
11:03 - 11:05it creates meaning.
-
11:05 - 11:07It's what wakes me up to life.
-
11:07 - 11:08It's what says,
-
11:08 - 11:09"Appreciate it!
-
11:09 - 11:11Don't take it for granted!
-
11:11 - 11:13Write the next book!
-
11:13 - 11:15Laugh with your friends!
-
11:15 - 11:16Go explore!
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11:17 - 11:19Eat another dozen oysters!"
-
11:19 - 11:20(Laughter)
-
11:21 - 11:24Because it's not how long
I live that matters; -
11:24 - 11:26it's how I live,
-
11:27 - 11:29and I intend to do it well -
-
11:30 - 11:31to the end.
-
11:32 - 11:33Thank you!
-
11:34 - 11:37(Applause)
- Title:
- What's wrong with dying? | Lesley Hazleton | TEDxSeattle
- Description:
-
The answer might seem simple, but in the hands of Lesley Hazleton the question takes us on a surprisingly humorous and thought-provoking journey into what it would actually mean to live forever. And whether we’d truly want to. A frequent TED.com speaker and 'Accidental Theologist,' Hazleton uses wit and wisdom to challenge our ideas not only about death, but about what it is to live well.
Lesley Hazleton has traced the roots of conflict in several books, including compelling "flesh-and-blood" biographies of Muhammad and Mary, and casts "an agnostic eye on politics, religion, and existence" on her blog, AccidentalTheologist.com. Her newest book, Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto, celebrates the agnostic stance as "rising above the flat two-dimensional line of belief/unbelief, creating new possibilities for how we think about being in the world." In it, she explores what we mean by the search for meaning, invokes the humbling perspective of infinity and reconsiders what we talk about when we talk about soul.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 11:41
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Peter van de Ven edited English subtitles for What's wrong with dying? | Lesley Hazleton | TEDxSeattle | ||
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Peter van de Ven edited English subtitles for What's wrong with dying? | Lesley Hazleton | TEDxSeattle | ||
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