Growing old is not so bad | Claude Weill | TEDxLaRochelle

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Claude is a young man of 90. He has a message full of hope and humanity which he wants to share with us, and that affects as all: growing old is not so bad!

Well-known specialist of "paper" advertising, Claude Weil is co-author of the successful works "Cartons de Pub", "Belles de Pub" and "Bêtes de Pub".

Being an old man is not so bad.

For most people, life
is like eating asparagus.

At first, childhood is sweet,
happy, and lighthearted.

Teen age is always good,

the first loves, the hopes,
the discoveries.

And then it gets harder,
the career, the responsibilities;

but you can still enjoy it.

Then it comes a time when it gets so hard,
sour and full of fiber,

that you are just happy to end it all.

I had to swallow my asparagus life
the other way around.

The beginning was leathery, pugnacious,

the school, the strict parents,
and then the war.

The gas masks, the alarm sirens,

and then the Nazi occupation,
the yellow star.

My family would go into hiding in Dordogne
under false identity.

Way better was my early apprenticeship
as a print maker, since I was 14.

Then the hiding in the bush,
the resistance.

Bit by bit sweeter, the liberation,
the love, the children.

My business life, the creation,
the journeys.

Today I find myself at this crispy
and delicious point,

free, happy, I write books,

and the only thing I am afraid of,
is that my asparagus will come to an end.

As Woody Allen said,

"I am not afraid of death,

I just don't want to be there
when it happens."

The sour, tough beginning
of my asparagus was occupation.

When I was 15, I joined
the Maquis in Corrèze

and took the position of liaison officer.

In fact, I carried envelopes
from a bush to another,

by bike, with a schoolbag on my shoulders

so that to look like a boy
going to school.

One day in 1943, on a bridge,

German soldiers helped
by some militants checked the papers.

The militants were
those extremist collaborators

in charge of arresting members of
the Resistance, Jews, Gipsy and Maquis,

and handing them over to the Gestapo.

A militant stops me,
makes me get off my bike,

and asks for my papers.

They were false,

and the message I was delivering
was particularly compromising.

I was about to show him my papers,

when a German soldier
at the other end of the bridge

calls him and asks him
to come immediately.

What a miracle! The militant
signals me to leave.

After that time,

I told myself that nothing really bad
could possibly happen to me.

I am still astounded.
I am 89 and a half years old.

(Laughter)

Since I was 80, we celebrate
the half year anniversary,

like they do with babies.

(Laughter)

You never know!

(Laughter)

Sometimes during my life, I asked myself,
"What does being old mean?"

What do you think of? What do you do?

What do you love?

Do you wait for death
with a mixture of patience and fear?

Or maybe you repel the idea,
trying to live yet so intensely,

looking around you, participating,

making an effort to understand
what's going on in the world?

I chose the second option.
I find my way out in writing books.

The road to happiness does not exist.

After all, should it exist,

it'd be so very crowded
that it would not be walkable.

In compensation, you find a bustle
of narrow secret paths,

while looking around you,
of tiny charming delights.

I rarely happen to think about death.

It is a word that I don't like,
anyway, it is a sinister word.

"End of life" seems to me
more appropriate to what I feel.

One day, this beautiful adventure
must as well come to an end.

On the other hand, my friend's passing
is difficult to accept.

Sometimes I feel like I am in a forest
that endured a hurricane,

and I am going to be
the only tree still standing.

What I fear, is the relaxing armchair
on which one falls asleep

in a sugary and cottony half-sleep.

But as for now, I am not there yet.

People often ask me,

"What do you do to stay fit and
good-humoured after all this years?"

I am not a guru, I cannot teach
how to live a joyful life.

But what I can do

is sharing with you some things
from my huge trunk of memories,

mixed with happiness, melancholy,
and some kind of bliss.

There are years and years of that,
a friend used to tell me,

"What annoys me most in you
is that you are always blissfully happy."

70 years later, I am still always happy,
in front of inventions, innovations,

films, books, music, design.

Yes, I am happy.

When I browse my tablet
to know everything about Blaise Pascal,

or to find a new washing machine,

and it blinks as if saying, "Got it!",

and in a few seconds it tells me

everything about the dear Blaise,

while showing me the last 100
washing machine models.

In the past, if you wanted to quickly
get some information about a philosopher,

or about the last appliances,

you had to subscribe to
a pay telephone service.

You would type SVP 11 11

on your telephone's keyboard

and ask your question to an operator.

She would check her notes
and call you back.

SVP 11 11 answered to about
5,000 questions per day.

Today, there are more than three billion
searches on Google per day,

that is almost 40,000 per second.

Yes, I am happy...

when I take the Channel Tunnel,

of which I had the chance to witness
the connection of its two halves

during its building.

I am happy when
they treat me with radiotherapy

instead of slicing me like other times.

That's the kind of things
that give me hope

and make me believe that men
can be extraordinary.

And women as well, of course.
Starting with my wife.

I want to tell you about how we first met.
She was rather surprising.

It was the epoch of surprise parties,
slow dancing and swing.

Everyone brought their 45 rpm records
and their whiskey bottles.

I ask a girl to dance.

I ask her name,

she replies, "Lise Weill."

"That's funny, mine's Claude Weill."

"Oh, yes, that's funny indeed!"

"And the girl over there,
she's my sister, Micheline Weill."

"Oh well, my sister's name
is also Micheline Weill!"

"Please, don't tell me
that your father's name is Robert!"

"But it is indeed,
my father's name is Robert.

But he is dead."

"My father's dead too."

"That's incredible! Where do you live?"
"In the 17th road."

"Me too."

"And you are 19?"
"Me too."

We left together.

We walked along Niel Avenue,
it was dark and very cold.

Lise put her hand in my coat's pocket.

And this is how we have been
together for 70 years.

Our jobs were completely different.

I was the manager
of a retail advertising company.

Lise was a dental surgeon.

Beside her dental practice, she'd created
a free dental care service

in a Parisian hospital.

It was before CMU started.

Later, she funded an association
with some colleagues,

they went to far-off regions
where no dentists used to go.

They treated people that sometimes
were at risk of dying of malnutrition,

since their teeth were in such a bad shape
that they refused to feed themselves.

Lise trained the inhabitants
in basic dental care.

She has also worked in the Andes,
at an altitude of more than 4000 meters,

or in Nicaragua, during the war.

To operate in those regions
without electric power,

Lise had created a special suitcase
together with an engineer.

The top part enclosed a solar panel,

and the inner part a complete kit
of dental care tools.

Lise's suitcase, as we called it then,

it's a tool that is nowadays
used all over the world.

For this commitment and many more,
she received the Legion of Honor

from Bernard Kouchner's hands.

When we met again, we had
so many things to tell each other,

and that is perhaps one of the secrets
of our couple's vitality.

My bliss didn't prevent me
to be often insurgent,

indignant, upset
because of injustice and fanatism.

Lise and I have been active members
of Amnesty International for 40 years,

to defend human rights.

And while fighting for this common cause,

we met amazing people
that became close friends of ours.

In Madagascar, I took part
in the building of a school,

and of a refuge village with 100 houses,

that still progresses thanks
to his creator, Daniel Dupuis,

in spite of the huge problems
they are facing in that country.

One day, a friend
that I really admired said to me,

"One cannot die before
having written a book."

He died without writing any.

As for me, I followed his advice,
I've already written fourteen.

But I have to hurry!

After what happened with Charlie Hebdo,
at the kosher shop and at the Bataclan,

I was bewildered, despondent.

I felt disquiet
and demoralization around me.

In defiance, in revolt against it I wanted
to write a joyful and carefree book,

trying to give back for a moment
their smiles to my loved ones

and to the unknown people
that will read it.

I wrote "Zero Sadness!",
illustrated by Claire Maupas,

whom I also entrusted
with this talk's drawings.

Here then, you will have understood
that being old is not so bad.

I haven't got any recipes
for a happy old age to give you,

but what I say is that, at 30...

At 30? No, at 89 and a half,

(Laughter)

I still want to learn, to love,

and to stuff myself with asparagus!

(Applause)

Thank you!

(Applause)

Thank you!

(Applause)