The Classroom
Dying is only one thing to be sad over, Mitch. Living unhappily is something else. So many of the people who come to visit me are unhappy.
Why?
Well, for one thing, the culture we haver does not make people feel good about themselves. Weâre teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesnât work, donât buy it. Create your own. Most people canât do it. Theyâre more unhappy than me - even in my current condition.
I may be dying, but I am surrounded by loving, caring souls. How many people can say that?
Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldnât. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted. A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.
Sounds like a wrestling match.
A wrestling match. Yes, you could describe life that way.
So which side wins?
Love wins. Love always wins.
Taking Attendance
So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when theyâre busy doing things they think are important. This is because theyâre chasing the wrong things. The way you gety meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
We Talk About Feeling Sorry for Yourself
I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life. On the people who are coming to see me. On the stories Iâm going to hear.
Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too - even when youâre in dark. Even when youâre falling.
We Talk About Death
Why is it so hard to think about dying?
Because, most of us all walk around as if weâre sleepwalking. We really donât experience the world fully, because weâre half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do.
And facing death changes all that?
Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus in the essentials. When you realise you are going to die, you see everything much differently. Learn how to die, and you learn how to live.
We Talk About Family
As our great poet Auden said, âLove each other or perish.â
We Talk About Emotions
What Iâm doing now, is detaching myself from the experience.
Detaching yourself?
Yes. Detaching myself.
âŠ
You know what the Buddhists say? Donât cling to things, because everything is impermanent.But wait, arenât you always talking about experiencing life? All the good emotions, the bad ones?
Yes.
Well, how can you do that if youâre detached?
Detachment doesnât mean you donât let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. Thatâs how you are able to leave it.
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If you hold back the emotions - if you donât allow yourself to go all the way through them - you can never get to being detached, youâre too busy being afraid. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. And only then you can say, âAll right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognise that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.â
Reminds me of this clipâŠ
Turn on the faucet. Wash yourself with the emotion. It wonât hurt you. It will only help.
We Talk About the Fear of Aging
Aging is not just decay, itâs growth. Itâs more than the negative that youâre going to die, itâs also the positive that you understand youâre going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.
If youâre always battling against getting older, youâre always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow.
It is impossible for the old to not to envy the young. But the issue is to accept who you are and revel in that.
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You have to find whatâs good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now. Looking back makes you competitive. And, age is not a competitive issue.
We Talk About Money
Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And thatâs what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it - and have it repeated to us - over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all this, they have no perspective on whatâs really important anymore.
These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You canât substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship.
If youâre trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if youâre trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.
We Talk About How Love Goes On
Part of the problem is that everyone is in such a hurry. People havenât found meaning in their lives, so theyâre running all the time looking for it.
We Talk About Marriage
Iâve learned this much about marriage. You get tested. You find out who you are, who the other person is, and how you accommodate or donât.
We Talk About Our Culture
Every society has its own problems.
The way to do it, I think, isnât to run away. You have to work at creating your own culture.
Look, no matter where you live, the biggest defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We donât see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become. But if youâre surrounded by people who say âI want mine now,â you end up with a few people with everything and a military to keep the poor ones from rising up and stealing it.
Invest in the family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you.
The Audiovisual, Part Three
Donât let go too soon, but donât hang on too long.
We Talk About Forgiveness
There is no point in keeping vengeance or stubbornness. These things I so regret in my life. Pride. Vanity. Why do we do the things we do?
Itâs not just other people we need to forgive. We also need to forgive ourselves.
Ourselves?
Yes. For all the things we didnât do. ALl the things we should have done. You canât get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened.