Into The Night (Part 2)

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We don't know how. We don't know when. But death comes for us all.

To be human is to wrestle with this truth and with the great unanswered question: How do we live with death in our eye? Do we go gently or raging against the dying light? Do we depart with equanimity or with anger? With clenched fists or more commonly with denial? Or do we see death as something to be fought and even possibly conquered, a challenge increasingly pursued by some of the brightest scientific minds? Finally, what are the stories we tell ourselves? Whether shaped by religion, science, art, the natural world, the power of love, do these narratives sustain us or do they fall away when we suddenly find ourselves 'with skin in the game.'

INTO THE NIGHT: Portraits of Life and Death features fascinating, unexpected voices from various walks of life: old and young, believers and nonbelievers, the dying and the healthy, well known and obscure. However varied their backgrounds, all are unified by their uncommon eloquence and intelligence, and most important by their dramatic experience of death. Each of them has been shocked into an awareness of mortality-and they are forever changed. For them death is no longer an abstraction, far away in the future. Whether through a dire prognosis, the imminence of their own death, the loss of a loved one, a sudden epiphany, or a temperament born to question, these are people who have truly 'awakened' to their own mortality.

Part 2 deepens the questions of our shared human destiny, presenting candid intimate portraits of men and women who are grappling with the same questions as those appearing in Part 1. But Part 2 explores wholly new territory, featuring interviews with scientists whose breakthrough discoveries promise to radically extend our lives—upending the conventional narrative of life and death. Many scientists are probing how rapidly advancing discoveries in the fields of aging and longevity might be changing our narratives about death. Their voices range from mainstream scientists such as Judith Campisi and Gordon Lithgow, who are focused solely on the connection between aging and chronic disease. Their mission is to increase the healthy years of life. Mike West, is an outlier and visionary scientist specializing in aging research and regenerative medicine, pushing back against our acceptance of our natural limits. Aubrey De Grey, a British transhumanist tackling aging as a challenge of medical engineering who believes humans can be redesigned to live indefinitely. Ray Kurzweil, futurist and author of The Singularity is Near, posits a near future nanotechnology which helps us exceed the limits of the human mind and body. For both De Grey and Kurzweil, death is the enemy.

'This exceptional documentary is full of heart, offering a variety of perspectives on death and dying that will prompt viewers to reflect on their own attitudes, beliefs and values, shedding light on life and living. The featured stories cover death, dying and grief from personal, professional, psychological, biological, medical, sociological, philosophical, and spiritual perspectives, serving as an insightful conversation-starter for rich discussion in classroom and community settings.' Erica G. Srinivasan, Director, Center for Grief and Death Education, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

'Moving, beautiful, and multifaceted...The filmmakers masterfully weave together information and observations about biomedical, spiritual, social, and cultural aspects of death and mourning...Into the Night poses probing questions that will generate important conversations about the meaning of life and death, grief, and the ethics of end-of-life care - and these conversations will linger long after the credits roll. The film demystifies and destigmatizes death, and is essential viewing for students enrolled in courses on death, dying, end-of-life care, medical ethics, and more.' Deborah Carr, Professor of Sociology, Boston University, Author, Golden Years? Social Inequality in Later Life

'Apocalyptic and stunning and, for me, even life-changing. An astonishing piece of work which I urge you all to see.' Anna Fels, MD, Weill Medical College of Cornell University at New York Presbyterian Hospital

'A miraculous and courageous film that is so true, and so deep that it should be required viewing for all mortal beings.' Irvin David Yalom, MD, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Stanford University, Co-author, A Matter of Death and Life

'We are all going 'Into the Night'--it's one of the few guarantees in life. This poignant and beautiful film can be used as a catalyst to increase our death literacy and understanding of this integral process in life. The stories and interviews have such diversity and depth that there is something for everyone to connect with. This is just what people need to get conversations about dying, death and living well started.' Katherine Kortes-Miller, Associate Professor of Social Work, Lakehead University, Author, Talking About Death Won't Kill You: The Essential Guide to End-of-Life Conversations

'It can come as a surprise that discussing death with others can bring us closer to them, making us realize that we share many of the same responses to mortality. But reaching out, ending the silence, can be difficult, especially in a classroom setting. Instructors can break the ice by showing this excellent film, which documents the moving and deeply personal thoughts and experiences of several individuals whose lives were transformed by the realization that they are going to die.' Steven Luper, Professor of Philosophy, Trinity University, Author, The Philosophy of Death and Mortal Objects (forthcoming)

'Watching Into the Night makes clear that it's a lot more about life...To potential viewers, Whitney has a simple message: Don't be scared.' David Bauder, Associated Press

'A deep and riveting exploration of life's central mystery - death. Featuring a panoply of voices from all walks of life, the film examines how we inhabit our lives in the shadow of our mortality. Brimming with refreshing insight and radical moments of introspection, this extended visit with death should be required viewing for people of all ages. Its central message reminds us that to live life fully means making friends with death. Masterful. A stunning cultural artifact.' Dr. Anita Hannig, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Brandeis University, Author, The Day I Die: The Untold Story of Assisted Dying in America (forthcoming)

'Not until our own death - or the death of someone we love deeply - do we confront the meaning of death and the life we have lived. Into the Night challenges us to explore profound existential questions: What happens when I die? How do I feel about my own death? Do I fear it, rage against it, or embrace it? Is there life after death? This wonderful film will stimulate viewers - young and old - to think deeply, perhaps for the first time, how they will make sense of their own life and mortality. I highly, highly recommend this film, not just for those students interested in psychology, thanatology, or medicine, but for anyone curious about the meaning of life and of death.' Dr. Christopher Davis, Professor of Psychology, Carleton University

'A uniquely profound portrayal of our common human destiny.' Donald Shriver, former President, Union Theological Seminary, New York

'Into the Night provides the opportunity to consider the fragility of life, the process of dying, and beliefs about the afterlife. Viewers will be challenged to consider connections between living and dying from people who have occupied a variety of roles in life. While appropriate for use in formal death education courses and the training of people involved in end of life care, this resource could also be useful in any setting where the goal is to stimulate conversations among adults who wish to contemplate their mortality.' Carla Sofka, Professor of Social Work, Siena College

'Into The Night accurately examines how our death narratives both fail us and comfort us through stories in religion, science, modern trends, and fascinating prospects of future advances in aging. Through beautifully told stories of loss the film examines powerful questions in a raw, loving, funny, and at times graphic way. The film details the importance of conversations about death in communities, and the real problems associated with continuing to keep death at a distance. The fundamental truth is we all must come to terms with death, and embracing death is essential to living and loving with the fullness of our being.' Angela Knight, Associate Professor of Funeral Service Education, University of Central Oklahoma

'Whitney's ability to wrestle with our most immense uncertainties is astonishing. This is a transformative film for the ages.' Andrew Solomon, President, Pen American Center

'A masterpiece. Every element perfection. A work of surpassing beauty, profound significance, daring emotional and intellectual honesty, towering spiritual courage, breathless intimacy and consummate artistry.' Martha Wilder, Shakespeare scholar, Professor Emerita of English, Pomona College

'Into the Night gives crucial voice to contemporary death perspectives through a rich storytelling approach. The documentary provides both professional and personal accounts of death and dying that reflect a range of philosophical, religious, historical, societal, and medical facets. Interestingly, Into the Night also serves as Whitney's homage to her fellow death researcher, Ted Winterburn, who died before the film's completion. Whitney's cinematic contribution to the Death Positive movement is therefore not only educational and enlightening, it is also a wonderfully intimate glimpse into her own grief process. Those involved in death studies, social sciences, medicine, humanities, and hospice care will find this film especially useful.' Dr. Kassia Wosick, Professor of Sociology, El Camino College

'The power of the individual portraits, the cumulative effect of the different experiences and points of view, the gorgeous images that made me relish more than ever what we mortals have around us in the here and now.' Barbara Weisberg, Author, Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism

'The documentary...is intended to break the taboo of talking about the inevitable...Whitney's film is one of the first major documents of the Death Positive movement. Taking its name from body positivity, being death positive does not mean having a suicidal streak, or a ghoulish interest in the grave. Instead, it is about rebalancing the modern disconnected relationship with death, by starting the conversation before it becomes a necessity.' Richard Whittaker, Austin Chronicle

'Whitney's film takes death on fearlessly...Death may be sudden, or dementia may steal our capacity to make decisions. But the documentary urges us to allow death to provoke us to live more intensely.' Deborah Quilter, Next Avenue/Forbes

'Existential questions sit at the heart of most of Whitney's work. But making Into the Night would allow her to directly ask the questions she wanted to stop tiptoeing around: How do you live, and live well, with death in our eye?' Religion News

Citation

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Main credits

Stone, Sharon (narrator)
Whitney, Helen (film director)
Whitney, Helen (film producer)
Whitney, Helen (screenwriter)

Other credits

Edited by Kris Liem; director of photography, Paul G. Sanderson III; original music, Edward Bilous, Greg Kalember.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

medicine,hospice,mortality,philosophy,; "Into The Night"; Bullfrog Films; "Into The Night (Part 1)"; Bullfrog Films; documentary; death;

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[somber string music]

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[singer vocalizing]

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- [Narrator] The dream of
life without end is universal.

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It is common to all cultures
across time and place.

00:00:58.450 --> 00:01:01.470
To be delivered from
death is the undersong

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of all our stories and
of all our questions.

00:01:07.329 --> 00:01:11.129
[singer vocalizing]
[solemn string music]

00:01:41.082 --> 00:01:45.281
[solemn string music]

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2,000 years ago, China's first emperor

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was consumed by the desire

00:02:05.160 --> 00:02:08.083
to conquer death and live forever.

00:02:09.810 --> 00:02:13.640
Crowds today are mesmerized
by one of the most astonishing

00:02:13.640 --> 00:02:16.623
immortality projects of all time.

00:02:18.010 --> 00:02:23.010
The emperor built a 600-mile
wall to ward off destruction

00:02:23.160 --> 00:02:27.590
and commissioned alchemists
to find the elixir of youth.

00:02:27.590 --> 00:02:30.160
He ordered 700,000 workers

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to recreate his whole court in bronze.

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Musicians and scribes, chariots,

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the menagerie, a zoo-- all
guarded by a terracotta army,

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each figure life-size, 8,000 strong.

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The burial mound is vast, 21 square miles,

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and it is still being unearthed.

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It was a tomb meant to
house him for eternity.

00:03:07.530 --> 00:03:09.990
- I've come across a
few figures in my work

00:03:09.990 --> 00:03:13.880
whose pursuit of immortality
have been on such a grand scale

00:03:13.880 --> 00:03:17.180
that they really embody all
of our fears and our hopes

00:03:17.180 --> 00:03:21.150
and our strategies for
overcoming mortality.

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And one of my favorites is
the first emperor of China,

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the man who built the
greatest wall in human history

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in order to keep death at bay,
who has shaped our history.

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He created China.

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He's built some of the greatest monuments.

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And all of this, these
monumental achievements,

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all because of something
so profoundly human,

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something we can all
understand-- the fear of death.

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He didn't want to go
alone into that night.

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This emperor was determined
to take his entire world

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with him into the afterlife,

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and that is what he achieved in this tomb.

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[dramatic orchestral music]

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- [Narrator] The search continues

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for this elusive elixir of life,

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as aggressively pursued today

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as it was in the days
of the first emperor.

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[monitor beeping]
[heart thumping]

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The internet hums with the
promise of digital immortality.

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[ethereal instrumental music]
[computer mouse clicking]

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Perpetual youth drives a
billion dollar industry.

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- [Presenter] The newest
anti-aging breakthrough is coming.

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Get your exclusive sample now.

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- [Narrator] We deny
believing in immortality,

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yet we still buy these products.

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We build buildings that
we hope will last forever

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and fashion religious narratives
that promise eternal life.

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While many place their
hope in an omnipotent God,

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others put their faith
in omnipotent science.

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- We have in the last century or two

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experienced a genuine
revolution in longevity,

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perhaps the most important
revolution in human history.

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And yet this last insult to our power

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remains the fact that we
still get old and die.

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And so for scientists, for
everything that science embodies,

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for our story of progress,

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we have to be able to tackle death.

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[ethereal instrumental music]

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- [Narrator] The Buck Institute

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overlooks the hills of Marin County.

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It is focused on a new and
deeper understanding of aging.

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They have gathered scientists
from around the world

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who see their mission as urgent.

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- We are experiencing a revolution

00:06:04.720 --> 00:06:07.853
in the way we think
about aging and disease.

00:06:09.313 --> 00:06:12.640
I would say, up until a few decades ago,

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death was considered inevitable.

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There were even people who
argued that death was programmed.

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We are programmed to die
from the day we're born.

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That has changed completely.

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It is now, I think, by most
of the scientific community,

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within our grasp to not
only understand aging

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but to change its course.

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- I got into aging research
at a point where I felt

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that there was a revolution taking place,

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and that was the very first discoveries

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of mutations in genes that
radically extended the lifespan

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of simple laboratory animals.

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That was an absolute mind blast.

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The idea that you could alter aging

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by such simple interventions

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was really a very dramatic point,

00:07:02.087 --> 00:07:03.930
and it turned aging research

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from being an
outside-the-mainstream activity

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to being absolutely in the
mainstream biological sciences.

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Very, very exciting.

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- I'm not saying that we can defeat death,

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so we have to separate death from aging.

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But the aging process,

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this process of the slow
decline in tissue function--

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that has undergone a revolution.

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And we not only know that we can change it

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in simple organisms,
there's great optimism

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that we'll be able to do the same thing

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with complex organisms like us.

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- We are testing a compound here,

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and we have a hunch that this compound

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might extend lifespan of
these worms and slow aging,

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and therefore that would
be exciting for us.

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I'm often asked, what can we learn from

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worms and flies and even mice?

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And actually, we are related
to all these organisms.

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And so we studied diseases like
Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

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in tiny worms with only 1,000 cells,

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and the science we discovered there

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is very relevant to human biology.

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- Another really revolutionary idea

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is that we're pretty sure there are not

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a hundred different causes of aging.

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So think about an old worm
or fly or mouse or human,

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and you look at this old creature

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and you see so many
things have gone wrong.

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Eyes don't work, hearing
is bad, gut doesn't work,

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the heart is poor, the lungs are poor,

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and you think, "Oh my goodness,

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"there must be a hundred
different causes of aging."

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We scientists are now pretty convinced

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that that's probably incorrect.

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There are probably a few basic

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drivers of aging,

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and it's those drivers of aging

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that then give rise to
these myriad diseases.

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- [Gordon] People quite often
say that aging is natural,

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and thinking about interventions in aging

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is unnatural and therefore wrong.

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I would like to take
people that think that way

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through a geriatric-psychiatric ward

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and see the pain and suffering.

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Is that natural?

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And if it's natural,
do you really not want

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to do something about it anyway?

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[melancholy orchestral music]

00:09:35.485 --> 00:09:38.235
[birds chirping]

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- [Narrator] Longevity science
also attracts outliers,

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visionaries, and risk-takers.

00:09:49.230 --> 00:09:52.790
Michael West is all three and more.

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He is pushing back against our
acceptance of natural limits

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with a fervency and relentlessness

00:09:58.940 --> 00:10:03.423
of a believer who has lost
one faith, but found another.

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- I think it was the cemetery

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that first made me aware
of human mortality.

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For years after I ceased to
believe in Christianity--

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a devastating time for me--

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I would take walks in the evening and say,

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"God, show me what I'm missing."

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And then there was a day I stood here

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and it hit me such that I was
awake in a very profound way.

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And I could see, almost like a vision--

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it wasn't a vision, but I
could see in the cemetery

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a day when the sun would rise

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and the names of all
the people I cared for,

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many of them religious people

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who were believing religion
to be their salvation,

00:10:55.580 --> 00:10:58.450
and their names would be
written on these stones

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and they would be dead and gone

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and buried in the earth here.

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And I found that unacceptable,

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because I no longer had the conviction

00:11:07.470 --> 00:11:10.580
that there was a life hereafter.

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And I said, it will not happen.

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It will not happen.

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I'm good at science.

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I'll make it not happen.

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When I entered the
field of aging research,

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you might not find it surprising
that my scientific peers

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would look at this young scoundrel coming

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and saying, "We're going
to understand aging

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and turn it around."

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It was not exactly acceptable.

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In fact, the whole field of aging research

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was opposed to the idea.

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The dogma was, the belief
was, you can study aging.

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That's great, but you'll
never understand it,

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and will never be able to intervene in it.

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[somber piano music]

00:12:05.045 --> 00:12:05.910
What do you expect?

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The human body and all
of its complexities,

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it's going to wear out with time.

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I didn't believe the dogma.

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What I believed, based
on some of the things

00:12:20.053 --> 00:12:24.050
that I saw around me, was
that aging might be more like

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a time bomb blowing things up.

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Well we could understand that,
and we could intervene in it.

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And what would make me think that

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there was such a mechanism behind aging?

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I saw on TV that there were children

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that grew old when they were 12.

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They had progeria, an
accelerated aging syndrome.

00:12:46.860 --> 00:12:49.160
They get gray hair and
they die of heart attacks,

00:12:49.160 --> 00:12:50.560
tragically, when they're 12.

00:12:55.860 --> 00:13:00.560
Something had gone wrong in
their DNA, simple things,

00:13:00.560 --> 00:13:02.773
and sped up the clock of aging.

00:13:03.729 --> 00:13:07.767
There's time bombs with
clocks that make us age.

00:13:09.890 --> 00:13:13.193
We understand DNA, the blueprint of life.

00:13:14.230 --> 00:13:16.150
We found the part that describes

00:13:16.150 --> 00:13:18.966
how people should grow old and die,

00:13:18.966 --> 00:13:22.160
and we say we're going to
change the instructions.

00:13:23.772 --> 00:13:26.470
Today, in the laboratory,

00:13:26.470 --> 00:13:30.210
we can take a cell, one little
living cell from the body.

00:13:30.210 --> 00:13:31.390
It could be a skin cell,

00:13:31.390 --> 00:13:34.390
it could be a hair plucked from the head.

00:13:34.390 --> 00:13:37.890
Take a cell-- and we have
so much knowledge now

00:13:37.890 --> 00:13:40.853
about how aging works, the clockwork.

00:13:41.690 --> 00:13:46.030
We can easily take that cell back in time,

00:13:46.030 --> 00:13:50.413
like a cell time machine, to
the cells we were born from.

00:13:52.260 --> 00:13:56.520
These cells were once on the
skin of a progeria patient,

00:13:56.520 --> 00:13:58.230
taken back in time,

00:13:58.230 --> 00:14:02.270
completely erasing the evidences of aging.

00:14:02.270 --> 00:14:03.800
And these can be turned now into

00:14:03.800 --> 00:14:06.823
all the cells of the
human body-- young cells.

00:14:08.390 --> 00:14:11.400
It's come to be called
regenerative medicine,

00:14:11.400 --> 00:14:14.410
and because the cells are our own cells,

00:14:14.410 --> 00:14:15.823
they won't be rejected.

00:14:17.170 --> 00:14:22.170
And we can now make
young cells of any kind

00:14:22.930 --> 00:14:26.330
and use them to repair the human body.

00:14:26.330 --> 00:14:28.063
And I know this sounds amazing--

00:14:29.570 --> 00:14:32.053
we could do that forever.

00:14:34.210 --> 00:14:37.040
- Now, that's still pretty speculative,

00:14:37.040 --> 00:14:39.372
but there are some examples

00:14:39.372 --> 00:14:43.870
that give us hope that that
might not be science fiction.

00:14:43.870 --> 00:14:47.260
Now, there is dangers in this process.

00:14:47.260 --> 00:14:50.020
Every time a cell divides,

00:14:50.020 --> 00:14:53.960
it becomes at risk for
developing into a cancer cell.

00:14:53.960 --> 00:14:55.973
We haven't solved that problem yet.

00:14:57.080 --> 00:15:00.910
But it's still an incredibly powerful idea

00:15:00.910 --> 00:15:05.620
that has made people think,
maybe even in an aging body,

00:15:05.620 --> 00:15:10.000
we can get old cells to go
back to a youthful state.

00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:13.973
And people are working on
that, and we shall see.

00:15:16.340 --> 00:15:19.173
[birds chirping]

00:15:20.340 --> 00:15:21.910
- So, it was decades ago

00:15:21.910 --> 00:15:25.640
when I sat looking at the
cemetery and saying, you know,

00:15:25.640 --> 00:15:26.923
it isn't going to happen.

00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:30.450
Decades ago, already.

00:15:30.450 --> 00:15:35.450
I remember thinking, I'vr
got my whole life ahead of me

00:15:35.520 --> 00:15:36.833
to solve this problem.

00:15:38.560 --> 00:15:41.643
Boy, that life can go
awfully fast, can't it?

00:15:42.568 --> 00:15:45.651
[gentle piano music]

00:15:46.700 --> 00:15:49.060
I'm hoping it will be the next generation,

00:15:49.060 --> 00:15:50.593
our children's generation,

00:15:51.470 --> 00:15:53.723
that will benefit from
all that we've done.

00:15:57.870 --> 00:16:01.593
Ultimately, it comes down
to the lives of your family.

00:16:05.950 --> 00:16:07.480
What we're really doing--

00:16:07.480 --> 00:16:12.480
I'm doing in my life, is trying
to use my skills in science

00:16:12.760 --> 00:16:16.010
to build a better world
for family members.

00:16:16.010 --> 00:16:17.213
You know, for my children.

00:16:18.396 --> 00:16:20.979
[gentle piano music]

00:16:28.810 --> 00:16:30.363
Life is a wonderful thing,

00:16:35.090 --> 00:16:38.643
but it's only valuable if they're here.

00:16:39.935 --> 00:16:42.518
[gentle piano music]

00:16:54.540 --> 00:16:57.610
- The most fascinating
new immortality movement,

00:16:57.610 --> 00:17:00.340
the one that I think
really defines our day,

00:17:00.340 --> 00:17:03.970
the one that's really
raging against death,

00:17:03.970 --> 00:17:06.887
is a movement called Transhumanism--

00:17:08.980 --> 00:17:12.740
using technology in
order to conquer death,

00:17:12.740 --> 00:17:14.577
to banish it once and for all.

00:17:15.550 --> 00:17:19.135
We can use not just stem
cells but nanotechnology

00:17:19.135 --> 00:17:21.680
in order to repair our bodies continually,

00:17:23.110 --> 00:17:25.390
or we can upload our minds

00:17:25.390 --> 00:17:28.249
or we can build some god-like robot

00:17:28.249 --> 00:17:30.913
that's just going to solve
the problem of death for us.

00:17:33.902 --> 00:17:34.890
This is a real movement.

00:17:34.890 --> 00:17:36.190
There are scientists who believe in this.

00:17:36.190 --> 00:17:37.870
There are people putting money into this.

00:17:37.870 --> 00:17:40.110
There are philosophers who
are getting behind this,

00:17:40.110 --> 00:17:42.440
and it really captures our zeitgeist,

00:17:42.440 --> 00:17:44.429
our belief in progress.

00:17:44.429 --> 00:17:47.179
[energetic electronic music]

00:17:48.980 --> 00:17:52.570
And it has, like all great
movements, its prophets--

00:17:52.570 --> 00:17:56.687
characters like Aubrey de Grey,
this very charismatic figure

00:17:56.687 --> 00:17:59.580
with a long preacher-like beard

00:17:59.580 --> 00:18:02.570
who is working on repairing our bodies.

00:18:03.865 --> 00:18:05.593
- A lot of people have asked me

00:18:05.593 --> 00:18:08.870
whether my quest to defeat
aging is in any way personal,

00:18:08.870 --> 00:18:11.550
whether I'm doing it in
order to benefit myself

00:18:11.550 --> 00:18:13.633
or my wife, or my mother for that matter.

00:18:15.330 --> 00:18:16.910
I've never really thought
about it that way at all.

00:18:16.910 --> 00:18:20.223
I've always thought about it
purely in humanitarian terms.

00:18:21.550 --> 00:18:25.240
- De Grey is tackling aging
as an engineering problem.

00:18:25.240 --> 00:18:26.860
If our bodies are just machines,

00:18:26.860 --> 00:18:29.790
it must be possible to keep
them working indefinitely.

00:18:29.790 --> 00:18:32.600
- This is all about the ultimate medicine

00:18:32.600 --> 00:18:35.480
that can keep people looking and feeling

00:18:35.480 --> 00:18:38.630
and functioning just like young adults

00:18:38.630 --> 00:18:42.260
however long ago they were
born, however old they are.

00:18:42.260 --> 00:18:43.450
- Is it your proposition

00:18:43.450 --> 00:18:48.450
that there is no actual
limit to human longevity?

00:18:49.640 --> 00:18:51.240
- That is exactly my proposition, yes.

00:18:51.240 --> 00:18:52.073
I feel that--

00:18:52.073 --> 00:18:53.880
- [Stephen] So we could live forever?

00:18:53.880 --> 00:18:55.440
- Subject to being hit by trucks

00:18:55.440 --> 00:18:58.130
or the world being hit by an
asteroid or whatever, indeed.

00:18:58.130 --> 00:18:59.710
Many people, when we talk
about this question, they say,

00:18:59.710 --> 00:19:01.690
"Oh, dear, well, we have too many people.

00:19:01.690 --> 00:19:04.660
"Won't we have a dramatic
decline in the death rate,

00:19:04.660 --> 00:19:07.240
"people carrying on being
born, far too many people,

00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:10.890
"massive environmental problems,
don't want to go there."

00:19:10.890 --> 00:19:14.710
Maybe. Maybe we will, but maybe we won't.

00:19:14.710 --> 00:19:17.750
We know nothing about what
the birth rate is going to be

00:19:17.750 --> 00:19:19.180
100 years from now.

00:19:19.180 --> 00:19:22.070
We know nothing at all
about other technologies

00:19:22.070 --> 00:19:23.610
that may reduce our carbon footprint

00:19:23.610 --> 00:19:26.130
and thereby increase the
carrying capacity of the planet,

00:19:26.130 --> 00:19:28.493
thereby eliminating the
problem in another way.

00:19:29.920 --> 00:19:31.900
- [Stephen] There are
prophets like Ray Kurzweil,

00:19:31.900 --> 00:19:34.510
the great inventor, great mind,

00:19:34.510 --> 00:19:38.510
who is now dedicating his
energy to conquering death.

00:19:38.510 --> 00:19:40.130
- We're actually the only species

00:19:40.130 --> 00:19:42.540
that goes beyond our limitations.

00:19:42.540 --> 00:19:43.720
We didn't stay in the ground.

00:19:43.720 --> 00:19:45.390
We didn't stay on the planet,

00:19:45.390 --> 00:19:49.290
and we haven't stayed within
the limitations of our biology.

00:19:49.290 --> 00:19:50.310
Just 200 hundred years ago...

00:19:50.310 --> 00:19:54.090
- Kurzweil's working towards
what he calls the singularity,

00:19:54.090 --> 00:19:57.980
the point where technology
becomes so advanced

00:19:57.980 --> 00:20:00.880
that it has far exceeded the human mind.

00:20:00.880 --> 00:20:03.880
- According to my
models, 15 years from now

00:20:03.880 --> 00:20:06.590
we'll be adding more
than a year every year

00:20:06.590 --> 00:20:08.570
not just to infant life expectancy,

00:20:08.570 --> 00:20:11.220
but to your remaining life expectancy.

00:20:11.220 --> 00:20:13.550
We now live in an era
where there is really

00:20:13.550 --> 00:20:16.093
a serious way to overcome death.

00:20:17.336 --> 00:20:20.770
People think of evolution as
biological Darwinian evolution,

00:20:20.770 --> 00:20:24.363
but we're now actually engaged
in technological evolution.

00:20:25.250 --> 00:20:27.953
Health and medicine is now
an information technology,

00:20:28.810 --> 00:20:32.530
and these technologies are
doubling in power every year.

00:20:32.530 --> 00:20:34.690
Our ability to understand and reprogram

00:20:34.690 --> 00:20:38.330
this outdated software
underlying life, our genes,

00:20:38.330 --> 00:20:40.040
is now a thousand times more powerful

00:20:40.040 --> 00:20:41.387
than it was 10 years ago,

00:20:42.912 --> 00:20:45.712
and it's going to utterly
transform health and medicine.

00:20:46.700 --> 00:20:50.120
We have the tools now to
reprogram the software of life

00:20:50.120 --> 00:20:52.063
using what's called biotechnology.

00:20:55.410 --> 00:20:58.203
That is a bridge to nanotechnology,

00:20:58.203 --> 00:21:01.027
being able to go beyond biology.

00:21:01.969 --> 00:21:05.340
[arpegiatting electronic music]

00:21:05.340 --> 00:21:08.720
Medical nano-robots that
go inside the bloodstream

00:21:08.720 --> 00:21:11.430
and augment the immune system--

00:21:11.430 --> 00:21:12.850
can actually recognize a foe,

00:21:12.850 --> 00:21:14.960
or, "There's a bacterium that's an enemy,

00:21:14.960 --> 00:21:16.160
"I'm going to go kill it."

00:21:18.468 --> 00:21:20.470
It can also fix metabolic diseases.

00:21:20.470 --> 00:21:21.590
There's too little insulin?

00:21:21.590 --> 00:21:23.550
Okay, we'll put more insulin in.

00:21:23.550 --> 00:21:24.770
Kidneys aren't working very well?

00:21:24.770 --> 00:21:27.273
We can augment the kidneys
by taking out toxins.

00:21:28.810 --> 00:21:32.550
Ultimately, we'll be a hybrid
of our biological reality

00:21:32.550 --> 00:21:35.050
and our technological reality.

00:21:36.350 --> 00:21:39.220
We'd become increasingly non-biological.

00:21:39.220 --> 00:21:42.420
We'll be able to overcome
the problems we now have

00:21:42.420 --> 00:21:43.763
that shorten our lives.

00:21:44.840 --> 00:21:46.990
We're not far away from being able to

00:21:46.990 --> 00:21:50.999
indefinitely forestall that
tragedy, which is death.

00:21:50.999 --> 00:21:54.380
[arpegiatting electronic music]

00:21:54.380 --> 00:21:57.960
The ultimate backup plan
is to move beyond the body.

00:21:57.960 --> 00:21:59.880
Bodies are unreliable.

00:21:59.880 --> 00:22:04.360
The ultimate dream is to upload
our minds onto a computer

00:22:04.360 --> 00:22:05.780
so that no matter what happens to me--

00:22:05.780 --> 00:22:06.800
if I'm hit by a bus

00:22:06.800 --> 00:22:08.920
or if I'm destroyed in a nuclear attack--

00:22:08.920 --> 00:22:11.560
nonetheless, the real
me, my essence, my mind,

00:22:11.560 --> 00:22:15.080
my personality is stored
safely on a computer.

00:22:15.080 --> 00:22:16.610
And when the worst happens,

00:22:16.610 --> 00:22:18.350
it just needs to be downloaded again--

00:22:18.350 --> 00:22:20.820
maybe onto a new body
that's been grown in a lab

00:22:20.820 --> 00:22:24.163
or maybe onto a robot,
or something superhuman.

00:22:26.450 --> 00:22:28.560
We're still a long way away at the moment

00:22:28.560 --> 00:22:30.380
because we don't yet know

00:22:30.380 --> 00:22:33.040
how to get this information
out of the brain,

00:22:33.040 --> 00:22:34.820
or at least right now if we were to do it

00:22:34.820 --> 00:22:36.390
it would involve taking the brain out,

00:22:36.390 --> 00:22:38.790
cutting it into very thin
slices, pickling them

00:22:38.790 --> 00:22:41.293
and then scanning them,
and that's bad for you.

00:22:43.890 --> 00:22:46.600
But when you listen to
a contemporary scientist

00:22:46.600 --> 00:22:49.960
who believes in the power
of science to stop disease,

00:22:49.960 --> 00:22:53.480
to stop aging, it sounds
incredibly convincing.

00:22:53.480 --> 00:22:57.210
And you really can think
tomorrow, or next year,

00:22:57.210 --> 00:22:59.890
or within 10 years, we'll have cracked it.

00:22:59.890 --> 00:23:02.433
Just a little bit more money,
little bit more effort.

00:23:04.680 --> 00:23:07.700
There are no limits to what we
can imagine we could achieve

00:23:07.700 --> 00:23:09.453
if we can transcend our bodies.

00:23:11.140 --> 00:23:14.003
We tell ourselves this
story today more than ever.

00:23:15.830 --> 00:23:17.180
- When we're living for hundreds of years,

00:23:17.180 --> 00:23:19.760
thousands of years, maybe longer,

00:23:19.760 --> 00:23:21.350
just imagine what it will be like.

00:23:21.350 --> 00:23:23.600
Our lives will be so radically different,

00:23:23.600 --> 00:23:26.040
we'll have that time
to develop real wisdom.

00:23:26.040 --> 00:23:28.250
So we might sit around at,
you know, 60, 65 years old.

00:23:28.250 --> 00:23:30.500
"Oh, yes, I'm a wise old fellow now.

00:23:30.500 --> 00:23:31.760
"I have learned a lot of life lessons.

00:23:31.760 --> 00:23:33.930
"Oh, you youngsters don't know anything."

00:23:33.930 --> 00:23:35.600
Well, a 60-year-old of today, compared to

00:23:35.600 --> 00:23:37.240
the 600-year-old or 6,000-year-old,

00:23:37.240 --> 00:23:39.120
will be like a child or an infant.

00:23:39.120 --> 00:23:40.840
- Imagine you had two
or three hundred years.

00:23:40.840 --> 00:23:43.770
Think about the change in human life.

00:23:43.770 --> 00:23:45.330
Will we get married, you know?

00:23:45.330 --> 00:23:47.820
What will we expect out of partners?

00:23:47.820 --> 00:23:48.950
What will we expect out of children?

00:23:48.950 --> 00:23:50.660
We will have multiple
generations of children,

00:23:50.660 --> 00:23:52.857
or the number of children
you are going to have to have

00:23:52.857 --> 00:23:55.320
is going to be reduced, because
if people live a lot longer

00:23:55.320 --> 00:23:56.820
the planet will become overcrowded.

00:23:56.820 --> 00:23:58.810
So I think that's coming.

00:23:58.810 --> 00:24:00.960
- That sounds awful, another 80?

00:24:00.960 --> 00:24:03.940
When you said 80 years,
that really made me think,

00:24:03.940 --> 00:24:05.950
no way, I don't want another 80 years.

00:24:05.950 --> 00:24:08.339
That's wrong. That's misshapen.

00:24:08.339 --> 00:24:10.530
That's disrespectful.

00:24:10.530 --> 00:24:12.970
Enough already, you know?

00:24:12.970 --> 00:24:16.090
But if you were to say to me, 14 years?

00:24:16.090 --> 00:24:19.060
- I suppose there's something to be said,

00:24:19.060 --> 00:24:23.070
if you could really
extend life with quality,

00:24:23.070 --> 00:24:26.210
that would be interesting and
not a bad thing to pursue,

00:24:26.210 --> 00:24:30.030
but not with the end game
that death is the enemy.

00:24:30.030 --> 00:24:34.030
And I would worry about losing

00:24:34.030 --> 00:24:36.421
the joy and beauty and life

00:24:36.421 --> 00:24:38.060
that death provides us.

00:24:38.060 --> 00:24:40.730
- It's almost as though
you're not accepting

00:24:40.730 --> 00:24:44.423
the will of God for your life, you know?

00:24:47.836 --> 00:24:50.586
If you know it's time for you to go,

00:24:50.586 --> 00:24:53.147
and especially when you know that

00:24:53.147 --> 00:24:58.147
you're going to a better
place, there's, you know--

00:24:58.570 --> 00:25:03.570
If this is my time,
finally, then I surrender.

00:25:04.760 --> 00:25:09.120
- If I were to die tomorrow
and my brain could be stored,

00:25:09.120 --> 00:25:11.890
but my body would be gone,
I would miss my body.

00:25:11.890 --> 00:25:13.910
Definitely, I would miss my body.

00:25:13.910 --> 00:25:18.320
On the other hand, I
would love to be able to

00:25:18.320 --> 00:25:23.320
plug in to the world
every few decades or so

00:25:23.560 --> 00:25:25.510
and see, where are we?

00:25:25.510 --> 00:25:28.880
Where are we with global
warming and population growth?

00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:32.673
And I just want to know
how the story ends.

00:25:36.780 --> 00:25:37.840
- [Narrator] In every moment,

00:25:37.840 --> 00:25:41.200
we are changing what it means to be human.

00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:42.853
The story is still evolving.

00:25:43.950 --> 00:25:47.450
The futurists' dreams
may still be realized,

00:25:47.450 --> 00:25:50.480
but meanwhile, we still age and die,

00:25:50.480 --> 00:25:52.233
and the questions persist.

00:25:53.480 --> 00:25:55.833
How do we live with death in our eye,

00:25:56.910 --> 00:25:58.800
and what are the narratives of solace

00:25:58.800 --> 00:26:00.583
that can sustain us today?

00:26:04.664 --> 00:26:07.647
[somber piano music]

00:26:11.744 --> 00:26:13.744
- At two in the morning,

00:26:15.840 --> 00:26:18.323
when the Devil comes with his eraser,

00:26:21.240 --> 00:26:26.240
I would wake up with profound anxiety--

00:26:26.600 --> 00:26:28.000
the void has got me.

00:26:33.088 --> 00:26:34.488
And I would get up and walk.

00:26:37.101 --> 00:26:40.976
And the first thing I feel is that

00:26:40.976 --> 00:26:43.242
it's all been for not.

00:26:43.242 --> 00:26:46.433
I've worked at this,
I tried to love Jesus,

00:26:47.780 --> 00:26:51.670
I tried to live in some kind of

00:26:51.670 --> 00:26:54.493
my own sense of a heroic mode for me.

00:26:56.650 --> 00:26:59.090
I've tried to love

00:27:01.900 --> 00:27:03.600
even a lot of people I don't like.

00:27:05.360 --> 00:27:08.958
But, you know, I failed at so much of it.

00:27:08.958 --> 00:27:13.958
Maybe I am facing the void
because I hung on way too much

00:27:14.580 --> 00:27:17.635
to my own ego and my own little self.

00:27:17.635 --> 00:27:21.052
[waves gently lapping]

00:27:32.630 --> 00:27:35.100
- [Narrator] Sam Keen
spent much of his life

00:27:35.100 --> 00:27:38.830
searching for the story that
could rescue him from death.

00:27:38.830 --> 00:27:40.890
Science could never hold him,

00:27:40.890 --> 00:27:43.690
neither could the
certainties of fundamentalism

00:27:43.690 --> 00:27:46.343
nor the wilder shores of the New Age.

00:27:47.610 --> 00:27:51.317
The idea of death is an insult.

00:27:53.790 --> 00:27:55.770
Why did you dangle

00:27:55.770 --> 00:28:00.580
all of these possible
goodies in front of me,

00:28:00.580 --> 00:28:04.653
only to say in the end, "It didn't cut it.

00:28:06.360 --> 00:28:08.943
"You didn't earn your immortality?"

00:28:11.017 --> 00:28:14.367
[choir singing]

00:28:15.211 --> 00:28:20.003
♪ Jesus is calling ♪

00:28:20.003 --> 00:28:22.160
♪ calling for you ♪

00:28:22.160 --> 00:28:24.453
- My mother was a
fundamentalist Christian.

00:28:26.190 --> 00:28:29.153
She believed that and practiced
it with all of her heart.

00:28:31.788 --> 00:28:35.273
One day, when I was nine years old,

00:28:36.370 --> 00:28:38.763
one of these Gideon bible people came by,

00:28:40.150 --> 00:28:42.560
and he left me this

00:28:45.209 --> 00:28:47.509
little copy of the New Testament.

00:28:48.950 --> 00:28:53.950
And you can see it's well
used, and in the back of that--

00:28:54.730 --> 00:28:57.060
"Believing that the Lord
Jesus Christ died for me,

00:28:57.060 --> 00:28:59.750
"I now accept him as my savior.

00:28:59.750 --> 00:29:03.620
"If you will make the above
decision, sign your name."

00:29:03.620 --> 00:29:05.063
And here I signed my name.

00:29:06.643 --> 00:29:09.120
And I went up in my little tree house,

00:29:09.120 --> 00:29:13.130
and I would pray that I would
have a personal relationship

00:29:13.130 --> 00:29:14.383
with my Lord and savior.

00:29:16.920 --> 00:29:21.920
The place where death seeped
in was when I considered

00:29:22.920 --> 00:29:26.160
really what was the central
message of the New Testament,

00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:28.610
that whoever should believe
in Him should not perish

00:29:28.610 --> 00:29:30.110
but have eternal life.

00:29:31.568 --> 00:29:35.651
[choir singing]

00:29:55.839 --> 00:30:00.256
Death had this sort of
all-or-nothing threat promise.

00:30:03.530 --> 00:30:07.220
If I could believe, I would be eternal,

00:30:07.220 --> 00:30:08.933
if I couldn't, I'd be damned.

00:30:12.695 --> 00:30:16.470
And from about 11 or 12 years old,

00:30:16.470 --> 00:30:19.553
my belief system was slipping.

00:30:24.660 --> 00:30:26.780
The need to believe did violence

00:30:26.780 --> 00:30:30.673
to my own native, questioning
philosophical mind.

00:30:34.637 --> 00:30:38.900
I had worked my way free from
a lot of that fundamentalism,

00:30:38.900 --> 00:30:40.653
and then when Dad died

00:30:42.679 --> 00:30:46.380
that residue of fundamentalism came back,

00:30:46.380 --> 00:30:48.342
and the--

00:30:51.116 --> 00:30:53.607
the great existential awareness.

00:30:53.607 --> 00:30:57.263
If the father dies, the son will die.

00:30:59.470 --> 00:31:03.860
This very flawed but magnificent man

00:31:03.860 --> 00:31:05.910
protected me from death.

00:31:05.910 --> 00:31:08.920
As long as he was alive I was protected,

00:31:10.145 --> 00:31:12.520
and it wasn't by Jesus.

00:31:12.520 --> 00:31:14.943
Theoretically, Jesus was still there,

00:31:15.970 --> 00:31:20.240
but the fact was it was his love for me.

00:31:23.800 --> 00:31:28.800
My dad had only one prohibition,
no sex outside of marriage.

00:31:30.390 --> 00:31:32.260
I knew I wasn't supposed
to commit adultery

00:31:32.260 --> 00:31:34.017
before I understood what it was,

00:31:36.960 --> 00:31:41.960
and I wanted to get that rigid
Calvinism out of my soul.

00:31:43.682 --> 00:31:46.500
And I headed west for California.

00:31:46.500 --> 00:31:50.016
[relaxed folk rock music]
[car engine rumbling]

00:31:52.430 --> 00:31:54.975
We're dealing in the
'60s, with a period when,

00:31:54.975 --> 00:31:57.943
you know, everything was up for grabs.

00:32:00.410 --> 00:32:01.480
I wanted to know what this

00:32:01.480 --> 00:32:03.623
new Human Potential Movement was about.

00:32:06.300 --> 00:32:08.203
Man, I was going for liberation.

00:32:09.120 --> 00:32:10.420
I sampled everything.

00:32:10.420 --> 00:32:13.743
I sampled body therapies, a ball thing,

00:32:14.800 --> 00:32:16.552
and those things that really were aimed at

00:32:16.552 --> 00:32:18.168
getting you back in your body.

00:32:19.480 --> 00:32:22.190
There were drugs and psychedelics.

00:32:24.255 --> 00:32:26.455
- The truth is just heart.

00:32:26.455 --> 00:32:28.238
It's just all there.

00:32:28.238 --> 00:32:30.730
- The essence is in the heart.

00:32:30.730 --> 00:32:32.530
- Keep on breathing, and make noises.

00:32:34.707 --> 00:32:37.268
- I sampled all those therapies--

00:32:37.268 --> 00:32:38.400
some of them very solid,

00:32:38.400 --> 00:32:42.580
and others of them really
flaky kinds of things.

00:32:42.580 --> 00:32:45.940
It did reawakening the senses very well,

00:32:45.940 --> 00:32:49.470
but the New Age movement was
looking for the short path,

00:32:49.470 --> 00:32:52.163
for easy salvation and quick methods.

00:32:53.470 --> 00:32:56.640
I was still searching
for the big treasure.

00:32:56.640 --> 00:32:59.973
I was still looking for
questions about death and evil.

00:33:02.668 --> 00:33:07.668
[serene music and vocalizing]
[waves crashing]

00:33:09.334 --> 00:33:12.600
And one day I had what I would
call an agnostic epiphany.

00:33:15.437 --> 00:33:18.494
I've never forgotten it, nor will I.

00:33:19.423 --> 00:33:21.893
[serene instrumental music]

00:33:21.893 --> 00:33:24.528
I was walking way, way up the beach,

00:33:24.528 --> 00:33:27.043
and there was a cave that went in there.

00:33:29.590 --> 00:33:32.330
And that cave was very mysterious,

00:33:32.330 --> 00:33:34.350
I mean, what was it doing
there? I mean, it was sort of--

00:33:34.350 --> 00:33:38.873
It was both the ultimate
darkness, and a vagina--

00:33:39.930 --> 00:33:42.393
dark, mysterious.

00:33:42.393 --> 00:33:46.635
And somebody had cut into the rock,

00:33:46.635 --> 00:33:48.735
"Nobody knows."

00:33:49.755 --> 00:33:52.090
[serene instrumental music]

00:33:52.090 --> 00:33:54.133
And I swear it was almost like a voice.

00:33:56.007 --> 00:33:58.947
"You don't have to know."

00:34:00.600 --> 00:34:03.677
It was just like inside
me and I heard again,

00:34:03.677 --> 00:34:07.136
"You don't have to know."

00:34:07.136 --> 00:34:10.389
And I said, I don't have to know?

00:34:10.389 --> 00:34:12.139
I don't have to know?

00:34:13.330 --> 00:34:16.150
And it was like this 10,000-pound weight

00:34:16.150 --> 00:34:18.880
was just taken off my shoulders.

00:34:18.880 --> 00:34:20.515
I didn't have to know.

00:34:23.948 --> 00:34:27.406
[serene music]
[waves crashing]

00:34:30.170 --> 00:34:33.253
I am not put on this earth to know.

00:34:46.167 --> 00:34:51.167
And now I have two very
opposite feelings about death.

00:34:53.010 --> 00:34:56.870
One of them is, the blackboard is erased.

00:34:56.870 --> 00:34:57.973
That's it. Period.

00:34:58.820 --> 00:35:01.863
End of report. Nothing remains.

00:35:03.510 --> 00:35:06.703
Spirit-like smoke goes
off into the stratosphere.

00:35:08.690 --> 00:35:10.029
"We are the grass of the field.

00:35:10.029 --> 00:35:12.896
"The wind blows across it and we are gone,

00:35:12.896 --> 00:35:15.053
"and our place knows us no more."

00:35:17.590 --> 00:35:19.575
And the other one is, no.

00:35:20.738 --> 00:35:23.013
No, no, no.

00:35:24.300 --> 00:35:27.223
There is something in
me that transcends time.

00:35:28.340 --> 00:35:32.860
It was here before me and after me,

00:35:32.860 --> 00:35:34.601
and I am a part of that.

00:35:35.701 --> 00:35:39.663
I am at some level ineradicable.

00:35:42.240 --> 00:35:44.580
I can't shake either
one of those feelings,

00:35:44.580 --> 00:35:46.451
and I've quit trying to.

00:35:49.163 --> 00:35:50.546
[birds chirping]

00:35:51.700 --> 00:35:56.690
The feeling that I'm not
ended by death, first place,

00:35:56.690 --> 00:36:01.573
you know, I've got a palpable
immortality guarantee.

00:36:02.540 --> 00:36:07.540
I now have 21 books that are
in the Library of Congress.

00:36:09.280 --> 00:36:11.327
I think about that, I think about, okay--

00:36:11.327 --> 00:36:13.640
And I don't want to go
digital, these things.

00:36:13.640 --> 00:36:18.080
I do not want-- they're
going to go in hardcover.

00:36:18.080 --> 00:36:19.833
I've got that many books.

00:36:22.256 --> 00:36:27.256
I will be remembered. I'm ongoing.

00:36:28.490 --> 00:36:32.403
I'm ongoing in my children.
I'm ongoing in my books.

00:36:34.760 --> 00:36:39.493
And that ameliorated a lot
of my anxiety about dying,

00:36:41.550 --> 00:36:43.863
but what scares me most is the numbers.

00:36:44.820 --> 00:36:46.083
I say, that can't be.

00:36:46.930 --> 00:36:49.010
I am not 83 years old,

00:36:49.010 --> 00:36:52.233
somebody has been
fiddling with the numbers.

00:36:53.711 --> 00:36:56.313
Denial is my favorite defense mechanism.

00:36:58.350 --> 00:37:01.593
At 62, I decided to learn flying trapeze.

00:37:04.292 --> 00:37:07.433
[gentle orchestral music]

00:37:11.652 --> 00:37:16.235
[operatic singing]

00:37:37.968 --> 00:37:40.543
We all have dreams of flying,

00:37:41.719 --> 00:37:44.511
and those are dreams of transcendence.

00:37:49.630 --> 00:37:53.130
It all began for me when my
dad took me to the circus.

00:37:53.130 --> 00:37:56.043
I saw the flyer go to the catcher.

00:37:57.784 --> 00:38:00.540
That image stayed with me my whole life.

00:38:03.720 --> 00:38:06.477
I wanted to become the flying man.

00:38:09.690 --> 00:38:12.020
I can transcend age.

00:38:12.020 --> 00:38:15.003
I don't have to be defined by my age.

00:38:17.320 --> 00:38:18.563
I can do a new thing.

00:38:24.514 --> 00:38:25.347
And I did.

00:38:27.640 --> 00:38:28.473
And I do.

00:38:33.260 --> 00:38:35.923
I started doing trapeze
when I was 62 years old,

00:38:36.810 --> 00:38:40.353
so I guess the first thing
you would have to recognize is

00:38:40.353 --> 00:38:43.503
this was some kind of
immortality project, wasn't it?

00:38:45.740 --> 00:38:50.223
62 is not an ideal time to
start practicing trapeze,

00:38:52.583 --> 00:38:53.567
but I got hooked.

00:38:59.300 --> 00:39:01.493
There's a little element of fear,

00:39:02.500 --> 00:39:06.380
but this is not about overcoming fear.

00:39:06.380 --> 00:39:08.310
I'm not gonna overcome fear any more

00:39:08.310 --> 00:39:10.150
than I overcome the fear of death.

00:39:10.150 --> 00:39:11.283
It's gonna be there.

00:39:12.330 --> 00:39:17.330
What it is, it's about
becoming a connoisseur of fear,

00:39:17.540 --> 00:39:20.540
of knowing when you should be
afraid and when you shouldn't.

00:39:29.940 --> 00:39:31.133
Letting go.

00:39:32.990 --> 00:39:37.403
Trapeze teaches you, you must
let go at the right time.

00:39:43.080 --> 00:39:46.290
I would like to be able to become still,

00:39:58.290 --> 00:40:01.880
and not strive to

00:40:04.110 --> 00:40:05.813
stay when it's my turn to let go.

00:40:09.371 --> 00:40:13.954
[operatic singing]

00:40:34.420 --> 00:40:38.611
- How hard this is already

00:40:38.611 --> 00:40:40.870
to know you're going to die.

00:40:40.870 --> 00:40:42.440
Oh, and the way we say it.

00:40:42.440 --> 00:40:45.170
The callous way we say
it. "Oh, we're all dying."

00:40:45.170 --> 00:40:47.100
How many times have I
said that in my life?

00:40:47.100 --> 00:40:48.080
Well, we're all going to die.

00:40:48.080 --> 00:40:49.650
Oh, yes, we do.

00:40:49.650 --> 00:40:53.963
It doesn't mean the same thing
when you know you're dying.

00:40:56.167 --> 00:40:59.334
[gentle Native American flute music]

00:41:03.890 --> 00:41:07.340
- [Narrator] The idea that
the soul is irreducible

00:41:07.340 --> 00:41:12.080
and survives our death
is ancient, intuitive,

00:41:12.080 --> 00:41:13.913
and believed by many people.

00:41:15.230 --> 00:41:17.743
It sustains Tieraona Low Dog now.

00:41:19.730 --> 00:41:22.780
- I don't know how we
will ever begin to have

00:41:22.780 --> 00:41:27.560
a conversation around dying
if we can't in some way

00:41:27.560 --> 00:41:31.498
create a ritual that
prepares us for these things.

00:41:31.498 --> 00:41:35.415
(gentle Native American flute music

00:41:37.970 --> 00:41:39.830
When I was much younger,

00:41:39.830 --> 00:41:41.710
I thought maybe a good
idea would be for me

00:41:41.710 --> 00:41:42.983
to do a vision quest.

00:41:44.880 --> 00:41:49.343
Find a space, go out alone
for three days and two nights.

00:41:51.810 --> 00:41:53.703
I went out into this desert area.

00:41:55.630 --> 00:41:59.281
I made my circle around me.

00:42:00.703 --> 00:42:02.678
And it was so hot.

00:42:04.360 --> 00:42:07.833
The day went along and I was so thirsty,

00:42:09.800 --> 00:42:10.813
and then night came.

00:42:12.310 --> 00:42:13.473
It was hard.

00:42:14.380 --> 00:42:16.163
Not a wink of sleep.

00:42:17.750 --> 00:42:21.543
I had never been so
happy to see the morning.

00:42:22.960 --> 00:42:24.863
And I'm looking for signs.

00:42:26.090 --> 00:42:27.097
I'm like a failure.

00:42:27.097 --> 00:42:29.010
I'm a failure at the vision quest.

00:42:29.010 --> 00:42:31.903
And that second night comes along

00:42:33.770 --> 00:42:35.900
and I just felt so naked

00:42:35.900 --> 00:42:40.100
and just so tired and so vulnerable.

00:42:41.040 --> 00:42:42.748
And then the dawn came,

00:42:43.880 --> 00:42:48.223
and I looked over and there was this doe.

00:42:50.520 --> 00:42:55.073
She kind of looked up at me
and then just kept grazing,

00:42:57.840 --> 00:43:02.840
and I felt this amazing
sense of peace come over me,

00:43:05.320 --> 00:43:10.320
and I realized that I
had died in that circle,

00:43:10.330 --> 00:43:15.253
and that uncertain girl was just gone.

00:43:16.900 --> 00:43:21.900
And I walked out of there
reborn in so many ways.

00:43:25.320 --> 00:43:28.691
It was almost a foreshadowing

00:43:28.691 --> 00:43:31.773
of what I was going to need
to get me through today.

00:43:33.094 --> 00:43:35.677
[gentle violin and guitar music]

00:43:37.900 --> 00:43:40.650
[water flowing]

00:43:45.500 --> 00:43:49.202
When the oncologist says to you,

00:43:49.202 --> 00:43:51.760
"A year, maybe less,"

00:43:54.290 --> 00:43:56.460
that's when you really realize

00:43:56.460 --> 00:43:59.250
there's so many things in
our lives that prepare us,

00:43:59.250 --> 00:44:02.196
and we never know really why or how.

00:44:09.380 --> 00:44:13.475
My grandmother, Jo, was
Comanche-- part Comanche.

00:44:14.690 --> 00:44:16.432
She loved to go to Medicine Lodge.

00:44:16.432 --> 00:44:19.410
[Native American drumming and singing]

00:44:19.410 --> 00:44:22.500
And I remember the powwow
was going on, and the drums,

00:44:22.500 --> 00:44:23.763
and the men were singing.

00:44:25.150 --> 00:44:27.320
We were in the sweat lodge.

00:44:27.320 --> 00:44:28.660
We're sitting on the dirt.

00:44:28.660 --> 00:44:30.260
There's rocks in the center.

00:44:30.260 --> 00:44:32.373
It's hissing with steam.

00:44:34.495 --> 00:44:36.703
It felt like it was burning my lungs,

00:44:38.122 --> 00:44:42.090
and I remember just
thinking, this is so hard.

00:44:42.090 --> 00:44:43.963
Why do we do this?

00:44:45.460 --> 00:44:49.400
And Jo just told me, "You
know, baby, life is hard.

00:44:49.400 --> 00:44:52.960
"There's a lot of times
that life's just hard,

00:44:52.960 --> 00:44:56.500
"and it's going to feel
like your skin's on fire,

00:44:56.500 --> 00:45:00.130
"and it's going to feel
like it's hard to breathe,

00:45:00.130 --> 00:45:04.160
"and it's going to feel
hard, and you can do it.

00:45:04.160 --> 00:45:05.430
"You can do it.

00:45:05.430 --> 00:45:07.015
"You can get through it."

00:45:07.015 --> 00:45:09.765
[chimes ringing]

00:45:10.870 --> 00:45:14.393
It was another ritual about surrender,

00:45:15.750 --> 00:45:19.410
and about touching
something bigger than us

00:45:19.410 --> 00:45:20.413
and surviving it.

00:45:23.180 --> 00:45:27.730
That sense of sacred,
that sense of strength

00:45:27.730 --> 00:45:30.873
sustained me my entire life,

00:45:35.110 --> 00:45:36.593
and certainly now.

00:45:36.593 --> 00:45:38.444
[dog vocalizing]

00:45:38.444 --> 00:45:39.820
My good boy.

00:45:41.120 --> 00:45:42.570
But nothing prepares you

00:45:42.570 --> 00:45:46.570
for the moment when you're
sitting with the oncologist,

00:45:46.570 --> 00:45:50.270
and you have stage IV cancer
and everybody's told you

00:45:50.270 --> 00:45:51.890
and you've already done
the internet search,

00:45:51.890 --> 00:45:54.070
and it's like there is no cure.

00:45:54.070 --> 00:45:56.270
You will not be cured of this.

00:45:56.270 --> 00:45:59.270
Everything you say, there's no cure.

00:46:00.910 --> 00:46:05.220
Seven weeks of radiation,
three chemotherapy drugs.

00:46:05.220 --> 00:46:06.393
All at the same time.

00:46:08.860 --> 00:46:09.693
It was brutal.

00:46:12.640 --> 00:46:14.969
I would go to the bathroom

00:46:14.969 --> 00:46:19.130
and it was just glass.

00:46:19.130 --> 00:46:22.040
It just felt like shards of glass.

00:46:22.040 --> 00:46:23.370
It was so painful.

00:46:23.370 --> 00:46:25.033
It was mind-numbing.

00:46:26.000 --> 00:46:30.110
And I found myself talking
to myself like a child,

00:46:30.110 --> 00:46:32.410
like I just was saying, "It's okay, baby.

00:46:32.410 --> 00:46:34.993
"It's okay, baby. You're
going to be okay, baby."

00:46:35.950 --> 00:46:37.960
And I would go and I would lay on the bed,

00:46:37.960 --> 00:46:40.980
and I would just weep.

00:46:40.980 --> 00:46:41.813
I don't mean cry.

00:46:41.813 --> 00:46:45.770
I mean, I would just weep
and tell myself it'll pass.

00:46:45.770 --> 00:46:46.770
This too shall pass.

00:46:48.147 --> 00:46:50.730
[somber Native American flute music]

00:47:05.980 --> 00:47:07.889
I'll pour a little bit,

00:47:07.889 --> 00:47:09.839
and we'll let it steep a little longer.

00:47:10.700 --> 00:47:13.210
- Her diagnosis brought
up a lot of things for me

00:47:13.210 --> 00:47:15.590
regarding my beliefs around death.

00:47:15.590 --> 00:47:18.850
The idea of everything that made her her

00:47:18.850 --> 00:47:22.610
disappearing into the
black, into darkness,

00:47:22.610 --> 00:47:26.223
into nothingness was terrifying.

00:47:28.770 --> 00:47:31.873
I had considered myself an atheist.

00:47:31.873 --> 00:47:34.050
I just believed that when we passed

00:47:34.050 --> 00:47:35.410
we just went with the earth

00:47:35.410 --> 00:47:37.110
and that's just all that happened,

00:47:37.960 --> 00:47:42.456
but my mom somehow just being gone

00:47:42.456 --> 00:47:44.297
was really unsettling.

00:47:46.570 --> 00:47:48.900
There is this Lakota belief,

00:47:48.900 --> 00:47:52.053
which is that within us
exists a spirit and a soul.

00:47:53.140 --> 00:47:56.570
My mom could live on to
continue her destiny.

00:47:56.570 --> 00:47:59.470
She could reincarnate
into whatever she was,

00:47:59.470 --> 00:48:02.810
but also be accessible
to me, still be here,

00:48:02.810 --> 00:48:06.940
still watching over me, still
here to provide me comfort.

00:48:06.940 --> 00:48:09.110
As selfish as all of that is,

00:48:09.110 --> 00:48:10.683
it brought me a lot of comfort.

00:48:11.830 --> 00:48:12.880
[crow cawing]
- Yup.

00:48:19.950 --> 00:48:22.540
One night, when I was
done with the radiation,

00:48:22.540 --> 00:48:25.670
I felt very restless, and for some reason

00:48:25.670 --> 00:48:27.570
I felt like I wanted to go for a walk.

00:48:29.156 --> 00:48:30.708
It was in the middle of the night.

00:48:30.708 --> 00:48:33.250
[somber Native American flute music]

00:48:33.250 --> 00:48:35.850
I wasn't sure where I was
going or what I was doing.

00:48:37.490 --> 00:48:39.663
We lived very far out in a forest,

00:48:40.900 --> 00:48:42.743
and I kept hearing all these noises--

00:48:43.770 --> 00:48:46.373
what sounded like
good-sized animal out there.

00:48:47.630 --> 00:48:49.643
And I felt so afraid,

00:48:52.170 --> 00:48:54.583
and then I just realized
I'm afraid of the dark.

00:48:55.780 --> 00:49:00.780
I'm afraid of the dark,
and I'm afraid of dying.

00:49:01.290 --> 00:49:03.020
[owls hooting]
[wind howling]

00:49:03.020 --> 00:49:04.400
And I started walking back,

00:49:04.400 --> 00:49:07.073
and there's this very narrow bridge.

00:49:08.350 --> 00:49:11.080
I couldn't see it very well.

00:49:11.080 --> 00:49:13.813
If I fell, I was afraid
I'd be really hurt.

00:49:16.540 --> 00:49:19.203
I felt like that bridge
was my crossing over.

00:49:21.850 --> 00:49:26.713
I realized that I had
just done my death walk.

00:49:28.360 --> 00:49:29.823
I was rehearsing.

00:49:31.970 --> 00:49:36.510
As much as my family wants
to be there to help me,

00:49:36.510 --> 00:49:39.440
as much as my children and husband

00:49:39.440 --> 00:49:41.563
will be there to comfort me,

00:49:44.930 --> 00:49:49.911
I will have to walk into the
darkness or the light alone.

00:49:52.884 --> 00:49:55.467
[somber Native American flute music]

00:49:57.070 --> 00:49:58.860
And then there was the part of me

00:49:58.860 --> 00:50:02.680
that remembered I'm not really alone.

00:50:02.680 --> 00:50:04.650
My grandmother's with me.

00:50:04.650 --> 00:50:07.210
My great-grandmothers are with me.

00:50:07.210 --> 00:50:09.510
All of my ancestors are with me.

00:50:09.510 --> 00:50:10.873
They're all around me.

00:50:12.940 --> 00:50:15.250
I don't know how lonely it must feel

00:50:15.250 --> 00:50:18.603
for people to not feel that.

00:50:25.762 --> 00:50:30.762
[gentle violin and guitar music]

00:50:50.092 --> 00:50:52.509
Back, back, back, back, back.

00:50:53.990 --> 00:50:56.770
Living with the seasons
and living with animals,

00:50:56.770 --> 00:51:00.720
and having chickens die and burying dogs,

00:51:02.250 --> 00:51:05.190
and planting gardens--
and some are just annuals

00:51:05.190 --> 00:51:08.970
and they're beautiful
and they're so bright

00:51:08.970 --> 00:51:13.970
and their colors are so powerful--
and they don't come back.

00:51:18.180 --> 00:51:22.510
The trick, I think, for me, has been

00:51:22.510 --> 00:51:27.230
how to figure out how
to live like I am dying

00:51:28.550 --> 00:51:31.413
without living like I'm dying.

00:51:41.960 --> 00:51:45.243
Lord knows, the moment when it comes,

00:51:46.601 --> 00:51:48.434
how I will be.

00:51:49.672 --> 00:51:51.130
I don't think I'm so much afraid

00:51:51.130 --> 00:51:54.210
as maybe I won't be here

00:51:54.210 --> 00:51:56.120
to take care of Jim when he's old,

00:51:57.160 --> 00:52:00.283
and to watch us grow old together.

00:52:03.080 --> 00:52:05.013
I won't see my grandchildren.

00:52:06.190 --> 00:52:07.410
I'll never hold them.

00:52:10.130 --> 00:52:10.963
We welcome you.

00:52:12.943 --> 00:52:15.610
[steam hissing]

00:52:24.020 --> 00:52:25.130
- I think as many times

00:52:25.130 --> 00:52:26.840
as you can prepare for your own death,

00:52:26.840 --> 00:52:29.963
it's still really hard to
prepare for somebody else's.

00:52:31.080 --> 00:52:32.513
My mom's my everything,

00:52:33.630 --> 00:52:37.600
and I can almost see the
life coming out of her.

00:52:37.600 --> 00:52:40.720
I can almost see the death creeping in.

00:52:40.720 --> 00:52:44.563
I'm not really sure if you can
ever really prepare for that.

00:52:47.476 --> 00:52:51.726
[Tieraona singing in indigenous language]

00:52:59.860 --> 00:53:02.660
- When I walk out here on this land,

00:53:02.660 --> 00:53:05.193
I feel like there's an ancientness.

00:53:06.848 --> 00:53:07.681
It speaks to me.

00:53:09.530 --> 00:53:14.530
I feel that in me, the ancientness
of just the Earth itself.

00:53:20.500 --> 00:53:24.113
Today, you know, now, with where I'm at--

00:53:25.020 --> 00:53:29.233
living, and also dying--

00:53:31.171 --> 00:53:36.171
I love the whole notion

00:53:36.820 --> 00:53:40.330
that these things were
here so long before me,

00:53:40.330 --> 00:53:44.550
and they will be here so long after me,

00:53:44.550 --> 00:53:48.573
and that there's a
forever-ness to the universe.

00:53:51.370 --> 00:53:54.903
That's why I live here, and
this is where I will die.

00:54:00.253 --> 00:54:01.760
[raven cawing]

00:54:01.760 --> 00:54:06.760
I do not believe that this
soul started when I was born,

00:54:08.760 --> 00:54:11.350
and I do not believe
this thing I call a soul

00:54:11.350 --> 00:54:14.030
will die when this body dies.

00:54:14.030 --> 00:54:19.030
I believe this soul is
infinite, that it's timeless,

00:54:19.100 --> 00:54:21.823
that it's as ancient as this land.

00:54:23.520 --> 00:54:27.993
I will die, and I will be reborn.

00:54:31.490 --> 00:54:36.180
If I am wrong, if there is no rebirth

00:54:36.180 --> 00:54:37.943
and there is no heaven,

00:54:39.900 --> 00:54:44.253
I wouldn't trade a breath of my faith.

00:54:47.290 --> 00:54:51.333
If I'm wrong, but if I'm right?

00:54:53.976 --> 00:54:56.726
[birds chirping]

00:55:15.328 --> 00:55:19.660
[somber instrumental music]

00:55:19.660 --> 00:55:21.840
- We think we're gonna live forever,

00:55:21.840 --> 00:55:24.060
even though in some sort
of intellectual fashion

00:55:24.060 --> 00:55:25.703
we know that's not true.

00:55:27.460 --> 00:55:32.460
The way we carry on is a
total daily active denial.

00:55:39.700 --> 00:55:43.827
William Saroyan, he was said
to have said on his deathbed,

00:55:43.827 --> 00:55:46.250
"I know everyone has to die, but somehow

00:55:46.250 --> 00:55:49.867
I always believed an exception
would be made in my case."

00:55:50.890 --> 00:55:53.393
I think that really is true of all of us.

00:55:56.440 --> 00:56:01.160
The doctors tell you, you know,

00:56:01.160 --> 00:56:02.853
"It just doesn't look that good,

00:56:03.760 --> 00:56:06.540
"and you'll have to start
thinking about," you know,

00:56:06.540 --> 00:56:08.533
"dying in the next few years."

00:56:10.440 --> 00:56:13.923
I felt suddenly that
the music had stopped.

00:56:15.130 --> 00:56:18.730
There's always this music going
on in the back of our minds,

00:56:18.730 --> 00:56:20.950
the music of daily life.

00:56:20.950 --> 00:56:24.840
"I'm going to do this," and
then suddenly it just stopped,

00:56:24.840 --> 00:56:28.793
and it was replaced by
nothing at all, just silence.

00:56:30.856 --> 00:56:34.031
[wistful piano music]

00:56:38.500 --> 00:56:41.903
One day, I started to think
about this poem by Rilke.

00:56:42.940 --> 00:56:44.263
It's a beautiful poem.

00:56:46.330 --> 00:56:51.203
It's all about our perception
of time throughout our lives.

00:56:54.101 --> 00:56:56.290
[wistful piano music]

00:56:56.290 --> 00:56:58.160
- [Narrator] Turning for a brief time

00:56:58.160 --> 00:57:00.260
in the shadow of its roof

00:57:00.260 --> 00:57:04.310
is this revolving stand
of painted animals,

00:57:04.310 --> 00:57:08.813
all from the land that lingers
long before it fades away.

00:57:10.800 --> 00:57:12.490
- He's in Paris.

00:57:12.490 --> 00:57:16.300
I can so imagine him,
you know, kind of shy,

00:57:16.300 --> 00:57:21.300
and just watching the little
kids on this merry-go-round.

00:57:21.877 --> 00:57:24.880
[calliope-like piano music]

00:57:24.880 --> 00:57:28.140
He describes this very vivid world--

00:57:28.140 --> 00:57:32.210
a blue boy holding on to
the reins of this lion,

00:57:32.210 --> 00:57:35.643
a girl, all in red,
strapped into her seat.

00:57:37.580 --> 00:57:39.453
It goes faster and faster.

00:57:41.150 --> 00:57:43.063
You don't want it to stop.

00:57:44.310 --> 00:57:48.113
A red, a blue, a green passes by.

00:57:49.280 --> 00:57:50.873
They're looking out at him.

00:57:51.810 --> 00:57:54.360
It's a world in which that happy smile

00:57:54.360 --> 00:57:58.440
is squandered on a kind of fruitless game,

00:57:58.440 --> 00:58:00.563
which is this life of ours.

00:58:02.890 --> 00:58:05.260
What spoke to me so much about this poem

00:58:05.260 --> 00:58:06.983
was the music stopping.

00:58:07.940 --> 00:58:10.617
There was this music for these children,

00:58:10.617 --> 00:58:12.883
but I was outside of that world.

00:58:15.160 --> 00:58:18.440
By then, I was through the chemotherapy,

00:58:18.440 --> 00:58:20.320
and as far as I knew

00:58:20.320 --> 00:58:22.803
the music was never going to start again.

00:58:24.470 --> 00:58:27.593
I would always have this
kind of being temporary

00:58:28.620 --> 00:58:32.633
and, you know, just taking it day by day.

00:58:36.528 --> 00:58:40.760
I was 54 at the time, which
is not terribly young,

00:58:40.760 --> 00:58:45.203
but I really wasn't expecting
it all to end so soon.

00:58:48.490 --> 00:58:51.730
I remember in the days that followed

00:58:51.730 --> 00:58:53.730
having this thought
that this was, you know,

00:58:53.730 --> 00:58:55.683
something really real.

00:58:56.870 --> 00:59:00.270
Normally, you know, especially academics,

00:59:00.270 --> 00:59:04.710
they live in a world of ideas
and, in my case, you know,

00:59:04.710 --> 00:59:08.790
old texts, and then this must have been

00:59:08.790 --> 00:59:11.720
an entirely different order of thought.

00:59:11.720 --> 00:59:15.263
It was, this was really
happening right now.

00:59:17.700 --> 00:59:21.020
Suddenly, I was in a different reality.

00:59:21.020 --> 00:59:24.764
It was a different feeling
about fitting into the world.

00:59:24.764 --> 00:59:29.764
I felt that I was just
down to being myself,

00:59:31.290 --> 00:59:34.090
just the person that I really am

00:59:34.090 --> 00:59:37.523
and not all these hopes
and dreams and plans.

00:59:39.960 --> 00:59:43.300
This may sound odd, but
I think most of the time

00:59:43.300 --> 00:59:48.300
most people are, you know,
especially in our society,

00:59:49.400 --> 00:59:51.542
are just so big.

00:59:51.542 --> 00:59:54.415
[jet engine roaring]

00:59:54.415 --> 00:59:57.165
[dramatic string music]

00:59:58.520 --> 01:00:01.943
We live in a world in
which we are all-powerful.

01:00:02.970 --> 01:00:07.640
To judge by the cultural
artifacts of the modern world,

01:00:07.640 --> 01:00:10.913
there's really very little place for God.

01:00:12.410 --> 01:00:13.923
We're so important.

01:00:15.390 --> 01:00:17.590
Our importance fills the sky

01:00:17.590 --> 01:00:22.083
until there's really no
room for anyone but us.

01:00:24.539 --> 01:00:27.520
And, of course, you know, that's not true,

01:00:27.520 --> 01:00:30.010
and there's nothing like
dying to convince you

01:00:30.010 --> 01:00:32.070
that that's not true.

01:00:32.070 --> 01:00:34.890
But we live in that artificial world

01:00:34.890 --> 01:00:37.470
until something comes along--

01:00:37.470 --> 01:00:42.470
maybe it's a bad diagnosis
or bad prognosis,

01:00:43.750 --> 01:00:48.185
or maybe it's just a kind of
privileged moment of seeing.

01:00:48.185 --> 01:00:52.768
[vocalist singing in Hebrew]

01:00:57.470 --> 01:01:01.940
I think that it's this
inner kind of vision,

01:01:01.940 --> 01:01:03.450
the vision of the soul,

01:01:03.450 --> 01:01:08.223
that allows us to come before
God in the fullest sense.

01:01:10.180 --> 01:01:13.550
Way back when in prehistoric times,

01:01:13.550 --> 01:01:18.550
people were just heir to
this sense of smallness.

01:01:21.270 --> 01:01:23.520
I like to think of this in terms of

01:01:23.520 --> 01:01:25.230
the story of the Garden of Eden

01:01:25.230 --> 01:01:27.543
at the beginning of the book of Genesis.

01:01:28.780 --> 01:01:29.880
There's Adam and Eve,

01:01:29.880 --> 01:01:33.350
they're running around,
these two naked people,

01:01:33.350 --> 01:01:37.760
and they hear the sound of God
walking about in the garden.

01:01:37.760 --> 01:01:39.407
He's right there.

01:01:39.407 --> 01:01:42.190
[somber orchestral music]

01:01:42.190 --> 01:01:47.190
That smallness is really
the natural human condition.

01:01:50.330 --> 01:01:54.560
I know some people like to
identify the fear of death

01:01:54.560 --> 01:01:56.010
or the awareness of death

01:01:56.010 --> 01:02:00.130
as the seed from which all religion grew,

01:02:00.130 --> 01:02:02.653
but I just don't think that's so.

01:02:05.760 --> 01:02:09.980
The real beginning of religion,
it begins in that garden,

01:02:09.980 --> 01:02:14.110
where you're just a very little person

01:02:14.110 --> 01:02:18.583
and the whole outside world
is constantly acting on you.

01:02:19.466 --> 01:02:21.120
[thunder rumbling]

01:02:21.120 --> 01:02:25.220
I can't imagine a human being
under such circumstances

01:02:25.220 --> 01:02:30.220
not feeling this overwhelming
external divine presence.

01:02:30.820 --> 01:02:35.820
It's undifferentiated, but
it's overwhelmingly out there

01:02:36.160 --> 01:02:38.253
and it's making things happen to me.

01:02:39.235 --> 01:02:41.818
[somber orchestral music]

01:02:45.240 --> 01:02:49.290
I was existing in that state of smallness,

01:02:49.290 --> 01:02:51.593
that blessed state of smallness.

01:02:52.870 --> 01:02:57.870
I felt throughout this a new
sense of closeness to God.

01:02:59.690 --> 01:03:03.355
It was this extraordinary transformation.

01:03:03.355 --> 01:03:05.938
[gentle orchestral music]

01:03:09.250 --> 01:03:14.070
Now, I was starting my supernatural life,

01:03:14.070 --> 01:03:18.090
and I didn't know how much
longer it was going to last

01:03:18.090 --> 01:03:23.090
but it was definitely
going to be borrowed time.

01:03:23.730 --> 01:03:28.553
And I think that's where I am still now.

01:03:32.133 --> 01:03:35.141
[serene piano music]

01:03:36.830 --> 01:03:41.830
We have this belief in Judaism
called [speaking Hebrew]

01:03:42.210 --> 01:03:46.210
Every hour, every minute
of life is precious,

01:03:46.210 --> 01:03:49.690
and if you can preserve
it a little bit longer,

01:03:49.690 --> 01:03:51.040
that's what you ought to do.

01:03:53.120 --> 01:03:55.550
It's not like you get a second chance.

01:03:55.550 --> 01:03:59.180
You're on that
merry-go-round for one ride,

01:03:59.180 --> 01:04:03.839
and really, it's a ride that
we never fully understand.

01:04:05.089 --> 01:04:07.272
[serene piano music]

01:04:22.340 --> 01:04:25.860
- [Narrator] So on it goes,
hurrying to the finish,

01:04:25.860 --> 01:04:29.790
turning and circling
for no goal or reason.

01:04:29.790 --> 01:04:34.490
A red, a green, a gray go rushing by,

01:04:34.490 --> 01:04:37.533
the shape of some child's
outline half-begun.

01:04:38.510 --> 01:04:42.988
And time and again, a
smile is turned this way,

01:04:42.988 --> 01:04:46.070
a happy one that dazzles, unrestrained,

01:04:46.070 --> 01:04:50.153
and squandered on this
blind and breathless game.

01:05:10.320 --> 01:05:12.240
For those of us dying outside

01:05:12.240 --> 01:05:14.750
the fold of religious consolation,

01:05:14.750 --> 01:05:18.563
the solace of art and
love can become the story.

01:05:20.980 --> 01:05:22.940
- Less than three years ago,

01:05:22.940 --> 01:05:27.900
my two best friends died within
four days of each other--

01:05:27.900 --> 01:05:30.470
two relatively healthy men,

01:05:30.470 --> 01:05:35.093
not showing signs of dying,
really, and then bingo.

01:05:36.240 --> 01:05:40.230
They were gone in the
breadth of four days.

01:05:40.230 --> 01:05:44.910
These two vital men--
intellectual companions,

01:05:44.910 --> 01:05:49.910
long-term playmates,
the buddies I swam with

01:05:50.040 --> 01:05:52.543
and traveled with, and they were gone.

01:05:54.305 --> 01:05:57.088
[wistful piano music]

01:06:08.400 --> 01:06:10.240
They had talked about, you know,

01:06:10.240 --> 01:06:12.210
things they were going to do next year.

01:06:12.210 --> 01:06:15.290
We all say, "Next year, we'll do this."

01:06:15.290 --> 01:06:16.560
Well, there is no next year,

01:06:16.560 --> 01:06:20.090
and their deaths pointed
out to Maggie and me

01:06:20.090 --> 01:06:24.560
that there is no time like the present.

01:06:24.560 --> 01:06:27.730
- They were two people
who had kept saying that

01:06:27.730 --> 01:06:29.320
they wanted to do this thing.

01:06:29.320 --> 01:06:32.363
They wanted to go live in
Europe, and they never did it

01:06:35.360 --> 01:06:38.960
And then one of those
partners was left behind

01:06:38.960 --> 01:06:41.570
not only with the sorrow of loss,

01:06:41.570 --> 01:06:44.860
but also with the regret of
not having done the thing

01:06:44.860 --> 01:06:47.360
that they had said they
were going to do together.

01:06:51.080 --> 01:06:54.020
Their deaths taught us hard lessons

01:06:54.020 --> 01:06:56.123
that we hadn't been prepared to take.

01:06:57.780 --> 01:07:00.460
Dear Murray probably informed us

01:07:00.460 --> 01:07:03.330
more about death than about living,

01:07:03.330 --> 01:07:08.113
because his death was a
drawn-out, painful death,

01:07:09.660 --> 01:07:14.523
surrounded by denial, understandably.

01:07:15.960 --> 01:07:18.180
We could see that he was dying.

01:07:18.180 --> 01:07:21.223
He knew that he was
dying, and he wanted out.

01:07:24.360 --> 01:07:27.930
Easy for us to want to help him,

01:07:27.930 --> 01:07:32.713
not so easy for his family
to ease him out of the life.

01:07:33.784 --> 01:07:36.980
[wistful piano music]

01:07:36.980 --> 01:07:40.600
- Murray and I, when
we would leave Cape Cod

01:07:40.600 --> 01:07:42.180
at the end of every summer,

01:07:42.180 --> 01:07:45.733
we'd meet and we would
say, "It's time to go."

01:07:46.807 --> 01:07:48.820
And we would pack up with cause--

01:07:48.820 --> 01:07:51.023
summer was over, pull the shade down, go.

01:07:52.410 --> 01:07:54.850
Murray was in the hospital.

01:07:54.850 --> 01:07:56.693
I brought him a photograph--

01:07:59.484 --> 01:08:04.103
a simple building with a
doorway, looking out to the sea.

01:08:07.150 --> 01:08:10.163
I put it on the wall at
the foot of Murray's bed.

01:08:11.710 --> 01:08:14.573
And we both knew that he was dying,

01:08:15.500 --> 01:08:19.807
and I whispered in his ear,
"It's time to go, Murray."

01:08:25.297 --> 01:08:27.547
I said, "There's the door."

01:08:37.380 --> 01:08:41.508
He thanked me for that.
It was his escape route

01:08:42.471 --> 01:08:45.326
out into that sunlight.

01:08:50.150 --> 01:08:52.323
Yeah, time to go.

01:08:54.673 --> 01:08:58.256
[distant waves crashing]

01:09:05.830 --> 01:09:09.660
- Joel and I had a lot of
conversations after that

01:09:09.660 --> 01:09:13.000
about how we would stand by each other

01:09:13.000 --> 01:09:16.030
if one of us is diagnosed
with a serious illness

01:09:16.030 --> 01:09:18.790
that we know will take us out.

01:09:18.790 --> 01:09:21.223
Neither of us want to suffer that way,

01:09:22.064 --> 01:09:27.064
and not the next hospital
procedure and the next tube

01:09:27.280 --> 01:09:30.540
and the next thing and the
intubation and the-- no.

01:09:30.540 --> 01:09:31.373
No thank you.

01:09:32.480 --> 01:09:36.223
So, that death was profound.

01:09:39.210 --> 01:09:42.980
- [Joel] Their deaths propelled us

01:09:42.980 --> 01:09:46.103
to reconsider the way we were living.

01:09:47.090 --> 01:09:50.633
For example, letting go of ambition.

01:09:52.310 --> 01:09:55.690
- I met Joel on Cape Cod.

01:09:55.690 --> 01:09:59.180
He was this joyful spirit at play.

01:09:59.180 --> 01:10:02.760
And then when I moved to
New York with him, I saw--

01:10:02.760 --> 01:10:04.750
I don't want to say a
completely different person,

01:10:04.750 --> 01:10:08.900
but I saw, certainly, a
different facet of this man.

01:10:08.900 --> 01:10:11.000
I saw the New Yorker,

01:10:11.000 --> 01:10:14.990
I saw the person who
was driven to achieve,

01:10:14.990 --> 01:10:17.380
and I tapped into that energy.

01:10:17.380 --> 01:10:19.930
I wanted to be a successful
published writer,

01:10:19.930 --> 01:10:24.062
I wanted to stake my
claim, I wanted to be seen.

01:10:24.062 --> 01:10:26.780
And life became all about tomorrow,

01:10:26.780 --> 01:10:29.250
tomorrow, next year, next year.

01:10:29.250 --> 01:10:32.797
And it was also about the material--

01:10:32.797 --> 01:10:35.930
a bigger apartment, another pair of shoes.

01:10:35.930 --> 01:10:40.290
- Yet another book, another
show in the museum or another,

01:10:40.290 --> 01:10:42.090
you know, body of work--

01:10:42.090 --> 01:10:47.090
and instead of climbing
that internal ladder,

01:10:47.740 --> 01:10:51.038
to kind of jump off it into free fall.

01:10:51.038 --> 01:10:54.660
[gentle piano music]

01:10:54.660 --> 01:10:57.690
Maggie said, "Let's sell
the house on the Cape.

01:10:57.690 --> 01:11:00.370
"Let's pay off all our debts."

01:11:00.370 --> 01:11:04.283
And we just packed it all
in and moved to Tuscany.

01:11:09.030 --> 01:11:11.537
- To be in a country

01:11:11.537 --> 01:11:16.528
that has all the echo of time

01:11:16.528 --> 01:11:18.153
in every moment

01:11:18.153 --> 01:11:21.243
carries a kind of immortality with it.

01:11:22.680 --> 01:11:27.473
The weight of history
feels present in every day.

01:11:34.240 --> 01:11:38.330
Our new life there is a comfort

01:11:38.330 --> 01:11:43.293
that has entered the mystery
of us approaching our death.

01:11:44.910 --> 01:11:49.910
It's just eased some element of terror

01:11:51.252 --> 01:11:53.480
that we were here,

01:11:53.480 --> 01:11:56.713
and then we weren't, and
what did it all mean?

01:12:00.480 --> 01:12:03.144
- This way, so I could have some of the...

01:12:03.144 --> 01:12:03.977
- Lift it up, don't drag it.

01:12:03.977 --> 01:12:06.010
- Somehow, these deaths

01:12:06.010 --> 01:12:08.810
and the change of life
we were about to make,

01:12:08.810 --> 01:12:12.570
and the ideas that were
percolating in the background,

01:12:13.470 --> 01:12:16.793
had a moment of revelation for me.

01:12:17.710 --> 01:12:22.710
I felt this urge to
connect to a body of work

01:12:23.650 --> 01:12:26.920
that I knew from the history of art,

01:12:26.920 --> 01:12:29.420
but I had never really dealt with myself,

01:12:29.420 --> 01:12:30.820
and that was the still life.

01:12:32.627 --> 01:12:35.635
[lively piano music]

01:12:43.250 --> 01:12:46.930
I collect things now
that have once had a life

01:12:46.930 --> 01:12:51.930
and were cast off, and they're
basically in the junk pile.

01:12:52.530 --> 01:12:57.530
And by rescuing this one and
that one and bringing them back

01:12:58.390 --> 01:13:01.350
and putting them on this little teatrino--

01:13:01.350 --> 01:13:04.623
little theatrical setting that I've made--

01:13:05.630 --> 01:13:08.650
these characters come on to the stage,

01:13:08.650 --> 01:13:13.650
and one more time they have a
chance to express themselves.

01:13:14.558 --> 01:13:17.141
[lively piano music]

01:13:18.140 --> 01:13:20.630
- Perhaps he's choosing old objects

01:13:20.630 --> 01:13:23.863
as a way of honoring his age.

01:13:25.300 --> 01:13:29.500
I see a conversation between
him and these objects.

01:13:29.500 --> 01:13:32.089
He understands them.

01:13:32.089 --> 01:13:34.822
And these objects have been ignored

01:13:34.822 --> 01:13:37.780
for a long time, most of
them, and he's finding them

01:13:37.780 --> 01:13:41.380
and he's bringing them back
to life for a small moment--

01:13:41.380 --> 01:13:43.840
placing them in his
little theater, you know,

01:13:43.840 --> 01:13:46.307
taking this one and putting
it next to it and saying,

01:13:46.307 --> 01:13:48.137
"Okay, have a conversation."

01:13:49.900 --> 01:13:54.900
He's playing with death
and making it live.

01:13:55.050 --> 01:14:00.050
And how much of this is just
pure play and adventure for him

01:14:00.480 --> 01:14:04.790
and how much of it is
him facing his own death

01:14:06.140 --> 01:14:10.080
and finding a way to his immortality,

01:14:10.080 --> 01:14:13.750
that maybe he won't be left
on the shelf somewhere,

01:14:13.750 --> 01:14:18.580
that maybe his work will
always be rediscovered,

01:14:18.580 --> 01:14:21.020
and in that way, he will live on.

01:14:21.020 --> 01:14:23.023
I think that's a big piece for Joel.

01:14:25.066 --> 01:14:27.649
[lively piano music]

01:14:31.000 --> 01:14:33.990
- I'm really here in this phase of my life

01:14:33.990 --> 01:14:35.913
for the last look.

01:14:42.728 --> 01:14:47.728
It's like saying goodbye to
everything, one thing at a time.

01:14:48.610 --> 01:14:53.233
Hold it up, lick it with
consciousness, turn it around,

01:14:54.260 --> 01:14:59.260
thrill to its ordinary
beauty, move it off stage,

01:15:00.290 --> 01:15:01.583
bring on the next.

01:15:17.090 --> 01:15:20.760
Am I afraid of death at
this point in my life? No.

01:15:20.760 --> 01:15:22.735
It's coming at me

01:15:24.214 --> 01:15:28.705
and I've been lucky in experiencing

01:15:28.705 --> 01:15:31.805
a vision of what death was about,

01:15:32.986 --> 01:15:35.244
probably 30 years ago.

01:15:37.730 --> 01:15:42.730
I took an LSD trip with Murray

01:15:42.755 --> 01:15:44.721
on Cape Cod.

01:15:44.721 --> 01:15:49.721
And during the course of
that trip, we found ourselves

01:15:50.200 --> 01:15:55.200
lying on the grass of the
house that I had rented,

01:15:55.810 --> 01:16:00.810
baking in the sun, and
I noticed in the grass

01:16:02.070 --> 01:16:05.480
all kinds of creatures moving around,

01:16:05.480 --> 01:16:10.303
and I remember turning to
Murray, on my belly, and saying,

01:16:11.647 --> 01:16:14.070
"Put your hands in the
earth and open it up.

01:16:14.070 --> 01:16:15.260
"Let's see what's in there."

01:16:15.260 --> 01:16:20.130
And we sort of dug our fingers
in and pulled the earth back,

01:16:20.130 --> 01:16:22.910
opening up this womb in a way.

01:16:25.085 --> 01:16:27.894
[ethereal ambient music]

01:16:27.894 --> 01:16:31.229
It was teeming with life.

01:16:32.680 --> 01:16:37.680
It was fecund, and I remember
peering into it and thinking,

01:16:38.770 --> 01:16:42.350
oh, that's what comes after.

01:16:42.350 --> 01:16:43.883
It doesn't stop.

01:16:44.740 --> 01:16:47.960
It is just an incredible enrichment

01:16:47.960 --> 01:16:51.490
that we become part of that whole thing,

01:16:51.490 --> 01:16:54.340
that there is no end.

01:16:54.340 --> 01:16:56.640
There is no end to the end.

01:17:07.360 --> 01:17:10.390
I thought, there's
nothing to be afraid of.

01:17:10.390 --> 01:17:14.860
And that experience,

01:17:14.860 --> 01:17:19.710
like an arrow right
through my entire life,

01:17:19.710 --> 01:17:23.710
has been buoyant, in a way, for me.

01:17:23.710 --> 01:17:27.554
I never can think of death

01:17:27.554 --> 01:17:31.145
with any kind of tragic motif--

01:17:31.145 --> 01:17:35.803
dark, you know, abyss of nothingness.

01:17:39.790 --> 01:17:44.790
- I had much more fear of death

01:17:46.940 --> 01:17:48.983
until quite recently.

01:17:51.010 --> 01:17:53.427
When that feeling would come up in me of,

01:17:53.427 --> 01:17:55.490
"No, I don't want to die,"

01:17:55.490 --> 01:17:57.040
it was because I felt that

01:17:57.040 --> 01:18:02.040
I hadn't fully inhabited my own life.

01:18:03.150 --> 01:18:04.413
It's hot still.

01:18:05.309 --> 01:18:07.010
- Hmm, the light's beautiful.

01:18:07.010 --> 01:18:12.010
- [Maggie] Now, I feel the warmth of

01:18:12.726 --> 01:18:14.384
having no regret--

01:18:15.840 --> 01:18:19.580
that Joel and I have
finally done the thing

01:18:19.580 --> 01:18:22.253
that we were saying we
always wanted to do.

01:18:24.155 --> 01:18:27.405
[serene piano music]

01:18:31.090 --> 01:18:33.130
- And we are really looking at

01:18:33.130 --> 01:18:37.363
who we are as individuals,
and with each other.

01:18:41.520 --> 01:18:43.290
It's as if the last look

01:18:43.290 --> 01:18:45.730
not only applies to the cast-off objects,

01:18:45.730 --> 01:18:47.343
it applies to each other,

01:18:51.072 --> 01:18:53.510
and I want to know what it's like to

01:18:53.510 --> 01:18:58.423
be completely intimate
with somebody before I die.

01:19:03.070 --> 01:19:06.407
Maggie turned to me at one point and said,

01:19:06.407 --> 01:19:10.725
"If I die now, I will at least have had

01:19:10.725 --> 01:19:13.791
"this year with you."

01:19:14.884 --> 01:19:19.884
[gentle piano music]
[crickets chirping]

01:19:31.307 --> 01:19:33.890
[bell tolling]

01:19:39.261 --> 01:19:42.286
[gentle piano music]

01:19:49.060 --> 01:19:52.200
- [Narrator] Despair
over the unlived life,

01:19:52.200 --> 01:19:54.413
fulfillment over the lived one--

01:19:55.260 --> 01:19:58.368
these are potent stories
in the face of death.

01:19:58.368 --> 01:20:00.440
[phone rings]

01:20:00.440 --> 01:20:02.430
- Good afternoon, Apothecary.

01:20:02.430 --> 01:20:03.346
We can re-bill it,

01:20:03.346 --> 01:20:05.070
and it'll tell me exactly
when it goes through.

01:20:05.070 --> 01:20:07.013
I'm a druggist in a small town.

01:20:08.050 --> 01:20:12.400
I am the only pharmacist
in 4,000 square miles.

01:20:12.400 --> 01:20:13.240
You're welcome, hun.

01:20:13.240 --> 01:20:14.763
Have a good day. Bye-bye.

01:20:17.360 --> 01:20:22.360
Nucla is a hundred miles from any city,

01:20:22.730 --> 01:20:25.323
any direction that you want to go.

01:20:28.500 --> 01:20:31.223
I've got patients that
have never left Nucla.

01:20:32.490 --> 01:20:33.690
Some of them have regret

01:20:34.620 --> 01:20:37.283
that they didn't get a chance to do it.

01:20:38.410 --> 01:20:42.240
I probably talk to
almost all of the people

01:20:42.240 --> 01:20:45.254
after they're diagnosed
with a deadly illness,

01:20:45.254 --> 01:20:48.503
and I think the one thing I
always gather from them is--

01:20:49.879 --> 01:20:51.150
and it's something that haunts me, too,

01:20:51.150 --> 01:20:52.210
with my wife being sick--

01:20:52.210 --> 01:20:56.750
is that failure to do while they could.

01:20:56.750 --> 01:20:58.930
You know, it's the one common theme

01:20:58.930 --> 01:21:01.600
that I see that runs through every patient

01:21:01.600 --> 01:21:05.260
that I've ever dealt
with, is failure to do.

01:21:05.260 --> 01:21:06.950
There were things they wanted to do,

01:21:06.950 --> 01:21:09.520
but either illness or money

01:21:09.520 --> 01:21:11.520
or family sickness didn't allow it.

01:21:11.520 --> 01:21:13.070
It's going to raise your blood pressure,

01:21:13.070 --> 01:21:14.740
so it may be that your blood sugar

01:21:14.740 --> 01:21:15.890
is what's causing your
blood pressure to go up.

01:21:15.890 --> 01:21:20.330
For me, I'd like to go spend
about three months in Greece

01:21:20.330 --> 01:21:24.850
and go do a sail trip
through the Grecian islands,

01:21:24.850 --> 01:21:28.190
and then, I don't know,
then just take the train

01:21:28.190 --> 01:21:31.090
and go to every country in
Europe just to say I was there.

01:21:32.460 --> 01:21:35.980
You work all your life
to save enough money,

01:21:35.980 --> 01:21:37.343
and plans change.

01:21:39.020 --> 01:21:42.553
- Probably Don Colcord now is
the most famous man in Nucla.

01:21:43.790 --> 01:21:44.873
- Hi, Charlene, how are you?

01:21:44.873 --> 01:21:46.021
- Don, pay attention to me.

01:21:46.021 --> 01:21:46.854
- Hey, honey.

01:21:46.854 --> 01:21:49.563
- [Charlene] A lot of us go to
him before we go to a doctor.

01:21:50.620 --> 01:21:53.850
- Don's always there if you need help.

01:21:53.850 --> 01:21:55.450
Everybody around here loves him,

01:21:57.430 --> 01:22:00.310
probably except for the ones
that owe him a lot of money.

01:22:00.310 --> 01:22:02.540
- It's one of the best
drugs, because it does not...

01:22:02.540 --> 01:22:04.490
- He knows he can't leave.

01:22:04.490 --> 01:22:07.100
He's aware of that. He's been told.

01:22:07.100 --> 01:22:10.320
I'd love to be able to say,
"Don, we have a pharmacist

01:22:10.320 --> 01:22:12.830
"that's gonna come in and
take care of things now,

01:22:12.830 --> 01:22:16.640
"and you can go off on your-- you know,

01:22:16.640 --> 01:22:20.870
"you and Kretha can go off
and enjoy your later years,"

01:22:20.870 --> 01:22:23.540
but I don't know of any pharmacists

01:22:23.540 --> 01:22:26.150
that are willing to come into a small town

01:22:26.150 --> 01:22:27.900
and do the things that he'sdone.

01:22:29.380 --> 01:22:33.060
So I guess when he's finished,

01:22:33.060 --> 01:22:35.360
a lot of people around
here are finished, too.

01:22:37.039 --> 01:22:38.980
[gentle piano music]

01:22:38.980 --> 01:22:40.483
He does worry about that.

01:22:44.090 --> 01:22:45.940
- [Don] I just feel so much empathy

01:22:45.940 --> 01:22:48.243
with this rural, dying town.

01:22:49.260 --> 01:22:51.060
You know, they struggle, I struggle.

01:22:54.810 --> 01:22:57.090
The uranium industry crashed,

01:22:57.090 --> 01:23:00.922
and so things went downhill quite rapidly,

01:23:00.922 --> 01:23:02.350
and we have a lot of people

01:23:02.350 --> 01:23:05.463
that just simply live on
Social Security, unemployment.

01:23:07.250 --> 01:23:09.750
We have no hospice now.

01:23:09.750 --> 01:23:13.130
We just have very few
people that can provide

01:23:13.130 --> 01:23:16.123
the kind of end-of-life
care that people need.

01:23:17.300 --> 01:23:20.120
- People just want to be home.

01:23:20.120 --> 01:23:22.220
They want to die in their home,

01:23:22.220 --> 01:23:24.650
and in a lot of instances they can't.

01:23:24.650 --> 01:23:26.090
They have to go elsewhere,

01:23:26.090 --> 01:23:28.070
and they have to be taken care of

01:23:28.070 --> 01:23:30.543
by people that they don't know.

01:23:32.406 --> 01:23:35.333
[serene acoustic guitar music]

01:23:36.850 --> 01:23:39.043
- Independence is one of our traits.

01:23:41.580 --> 01:23:43.180
We have a large number of people

01:23:43.180 --> 01:23:45.343
who are living by themselves.

01:23:48.470 --> 01:23:50.393
There is this fear of dying alone,

01:23:52.720 --> 01:23:55.773
but most of the time
somebody will show up.

01:23:57.424 --> 01:24:01.507
It's the church, it's
neighbors, it's friends.

01:24:04.120 --> 01:24:08.170
We all gotta walk this valley
and do it by ourselves,

01:24:08.170 --> 01:24:10.893
but it's nice to have
somebody holding your hand.

01:24:15.470 --> 01:24:17.393
Our last sense to go is hearing.

01:24:18.280 --> 01:24:20.690
To hear that voice, you know,

01:24:20.690 --> 01:24:22.973
the people talking in the next room.

01:24:26.580 --> 01:24:29.120
To wake up at three in the morning,

01:24:29.120 --> 01:24:30.930
there's a reading light on,

01:24:30.930 --> 01:24:35.110
there's a neighbor sleeping
with a book in their lap,

01:24:35.110 --> 01:24:38.630
the cat's curled up, the fire's going--

01:24:38.630 --> 01:24:41.060
and that's it, you know.

01:24:41.060 --> 01:24:42.560
They don't make it to morning.

01:24:44.920 --> 01:24:47.363
I think that's how it's supposed to work,

01:24:54.070 --> 01:24:56.810
and that's what death looks
like in this community.

01:24:59.990 --> 01:25:02.740
[serene acoustic guitar music]

01:25:06.960 --> 01:25:08.960
- [Don] I'm not afraid of dying at all.

01:25:08.960 --> 01:25:10.350
That doesn't bother me.

01:25:10.350 --> 01:25:13.343
I'm afraid of dying without doing.

01:25:15.670 --> 01:25:19.520
I need the feel-good part of
my life to be accomplished

01:25:19.520 --> 01:25:23.533
so that I can go to death without sorrow.

01:25:26.690 --> 01:25:28.773
Sandy's case affected me greatly.

01:25:30.810 --> 01:25:34.110
Sandy is a great example in the sense that

01:25:34.110 --> 01:25:39.110
she is somebody that
did before she got sick.

01:25:41.070 --> 01:25:43.700
- I decided I'd better
live my bucket list,

01:25:43.700 --> 01:25:48.700
because my father had died
not long after my husband did

01:25:49.400 --> 01:25:54.125
and life just seemed fragile or something,

01:25:54.125 --> 01:25:56.454
so I got with it.

01:25:56.454 --> 01:25:59.190
[relaxed bluegrass music]

01:25:59.190 --> 01:26:02.550
I drove all over the
western slope of Colorado

01:26:02.550 --> 01:26:06.033
and visited all the
local things, and hiked.

01:26:08.020 --> 01:26:10.510
I camped out a lot by myself,

01:26:10.510 --> 01:26:15.510
which seemed to shock people
terribly, but it worked for me.

01:26:19.030 --> 01:26:22.903
- After my dad died, Mom definitely

01:26:24.093 --> 01:26:25.263
went out to prove to the world

01:26:25.263 --> 01:26:27.793
what your second childhood was all about.

01:26:29.550 --> 01:26:32.543
She meandered around
our part of the country,

01:26:33.500 --> 01:26:35.253
rafting down the canyon.

01:26:37.200 --> 01:26:39.873
She got quite a thrill
out of being the guide.

01:26:41.020 --> 01:26:42.860
And then she started venturing

01:26:44.169 --> 01:26:48.557
to New Orleans, Alaska, Caribbean.

01:26:50.160 --> 01:26:51.700
- [Sandy] And during all this time,

01:26:51.700 --> 01:26:53.943
I belonged to a couple of bowling leagues,

01:26:54.810 --> 01:26:58.542
and I joined a couple camera clubs.

01:26:58.542 --> 01:27:00.763
I got a whole drawer full of ribbons.

01:27:03.560 --> 01:27:08.153
To me, it was like all
my daydreams came true.

01:27:13.918 --> 01:27:15.010
- At the beginning of this year,

01:27:15.010 --> 01:27:17.500
she had received a couple of messages

01:27:17.500 --> 01:27:19.800
to get back to the doctor.

01:27:19.800 --> 01:27:22.933
We knew it was serious because
there was four messages.

01:27:25.180 --> 01:27:28.383
The next day, I drove her to Delta.

01:27:31.860 --> 01:27:35.230
We sat there for a little
bit, holding hands,

01:27:35.230 --> 01:27:38.010
knowing that they don't call
you again to the cancer doctor

01:27:38.010 --> 01:27:39.483
if you don't have cancer,

01:27:40.840 --> 01:27:44.303
and the news was blunt and devastating--

01:27:45.570 --> 01:27:47.803
stage IV pancreatic.

01:27:49.360 --> 01:27:50.980
- This was pretty hard,

01:27:50.980 --> 01:27:55.980
and I came home and blubbered a while,

01:27:56.040 --> 01:27:58.720
and then got to thinking.

01:27:58.720 --> 01:28:01.650
I have lived a really good life,

01:28:01.650 --> 01:28:04.290
and I used to tell people that

01:28:04.290 --> 01:28:06.100
I was so thankful I had went and done

01:28:06.100 --> 01:28:08.340
all the things I wanted to do,

01:28:08.340 --> 01:28:11.933
because it would sure seem
a waste if you didn't.

01:28:13.140 --> 01:28:14.623
I'm bald as a cue ball.

01:28:15.530 --> 01:28:19.070
There ain't no hairs on that head!

01:28:19.070 --> 01:28:20.950
- [Don] Sandy talked to
me about at great length

01:28:20.950 --> 01:28:24.780
that she was so happy that
she took all her money

01:28:24.780 --> 01:28:28.643
and did what she wanted to
do before this happened.

01:28:31.890 --> 01:28:35.680
- If I hadn't went ahead and
done the things I had done,

01:28:35.680 --> 01:28:40.080
I would be so mean probably
someone would've shot me

01:28:40.080 --> 01:28:43.460
a week or so after the diagnosis.

01:28:43.460 --> 01:28:46.810
But I feel a great
satisfaction with my life

01:28:46.810 --> 01:28:49.100
that I'd done everything I could,

01:28:49.100 --> 01:28:51.800
and most of what I wanted to,

01:28:51.800 --> 01:28:55.193
and I still hope to do a few fun things.

01:28:56.410 --> 01:28:58.683
I know we all gotta go some time.

01:29:00.010 --> 01:29:02.470
I just don't want to leave
what's happening now.

01:29:02.470 --> 01:29:04.610
I'm having such a good time now

01:29:05.680 --> 01:29:08.603
in between treatments and whatnot.

01:29:12.620 --> 01:29:15.430
- As I get closer to that time that

01:29:15.430 --> 01:29:18.300
I have to make a decision
about what I'm going to do,

01:29:18.300 --> 01:29:21.760
I don't know how to reconcile that desire

01:29:21.760 --> 01:29:24.940
to go do my bucket list

01:29:24.940 --> 01:29:28.713
knowing the town really would
struggle without my store.

01:29:29.567 --> 01:29:31.550
But it's hard to get
somebody to come in here.

01:29:31.550 --> 01:29:34.080
So, in some ways, I feel like

01:29:35.200 --> 01:29:37.263
I'm on hospice's list right now,

01:29:38.140 --> 01:29:39.740
that it's just a matter of time.

01:29:42.610 --> 01:29:46.210
I guess all of us over a certain
age are on hospice's list,

01:29:46.210 --> 01:29:47.743
we just don't know it.

01:29:51.320 --> 01:29:53.480
- [Charlene] He feels obliged to be here

01:29:53.480 --> 01:29:55.273
to take care of his people.

01:29:57.830 --> 01:30:01.083
I would be very surprised
if he ever leaves.

01:30:04.347 --> 01:30:07.980
[gentle acoustic guitar music]

01:30:12.250 --> 01:30:15.203
- Nucla has a Fourth of
July parade every year.

01:30:18.202 --> 01:30:21.770
...Fourth of July holiday
weekend in Nucla, Colorado.

01:30:22.620 --> 01:30:24.580
I announce the parade as it goes by,

01:30:24.580 --> 01:30:26.240
and people wish me a happy birthday

01:30:26.240 --> 01:30:28.247
since it's my birthday on the 4th.

01:30:28.247 --> 01:30:29.210
You know, that's the nice thing

01:30:29.210 --> 01:30:30.540
about watching the floats from up here

01:30:30.540 --> 01:30:31.725
at the first street,

01:30:31.725 --> 01:30:34.645
you get all the candy.
[siren wailing]

01:30:35.820 --> 01:30:40.820
♪ Summer time, good ol' summer time ♪

01:30:41.649 --> 01:30:46.269
♪ In the good ol' summer time ♪

01:30:46.269 --> 01:30:50.442
♪ Strolling down the main street hill ♪

01:30:50.442 --> 01:30:52.030
♪ The llama ♪

01:30:52.030 --> 01:30:54.310
- [Don] Give a warm welcome
to this year's king and queen,

01:30:54.310 --> 01:30:55.903
Frank and Mary Lou.

01:30:55.903 --> 01:30:58.800
[audience applauding]

01:30:58.800 --> 01:31:00.860
I don't know that I could just walk away

01:31:00.860 --> 01:31:04.170
and close the door and say, I did my part.

01:31:04.170 --> 01:31:05.803
I can't do anymore.

01:31:05.803 --> 01:31:10.401
♪ Nucla is the place to be ♪ ♪
In the good ol' summer time ♪

01:31:10.401 --> 01:31:12.883
- Do I dare say, only the
Llama Lodge? [laughing]

01:31:15.083 --> 01:31:17.987
[audience applauding]
[laughing]

01:31:17.987 --> 01:31:21.940
I can't imagine ever
wanting to be in any place

01:31:21.940 --> 01:31:24.460
but this town where people know me.

01:31:24.460 --> 01:31:27.340
The Queen and Junior Queen
candidates and princesses

01:31:27.340 --> 01:31:28.330
are all here today.

01:31:28.330 --> 01:31:32.300
I want to die in Nucla, and hopefully

01:31:32.300 --> 01:31:37.100
I have touched enough people
that I'll have a big funeral.

01:31:37.100 --> 01:31:38.915
That would be a success.

01:31:41.115 --> 01:31:44.390
[gentle piano music]
[crickets chirping]

01:31:46.270 --> 01:31:48.170
And figure out how to do my bucket list,

01:31:48.170 --> 01:31:51.418
and take care of Nucla,
how take care of my wife,

01:31:53.004 --> 01:31:55.254
and how to take care of me.

01:31:58.134 --> 01:31:59.311
- [Man] Yeah!

01:32:00.570 --> 01:32:05.045
[gentle instrumental music]
[fireworks exploding]

01:32:49.120 --> 01:32:51.990
[droning ambient music]

01:32:51.990 --> 01:32:53.620
- [Narrator] Living in the moment--

01:32:53.620 --> 01:32:55.190
accepting that we are dying

01:32:55.190 --> 01:32:56.955
and everyone is dying with us--

01:32:56.955 --> 01:32:59.000
can be liberating.

01:32:59.000 --> 01:33:01.680
Death is banished into the future,

01:33:01.680 --> 01:33:03.563
and the heart is enlarged.

01:33:18.000 --> 01:33:21.830
- The great mystery for me is,

01:33:21.830 --> 01:33:26.830
how did I get to becoming a Buddhist monk

01:33:29.210 --> 01:33:32.480
15 or so years after
waking up in the gutter

01:33:33.850 --> 01:33:38.713
from a blackout, a drug-induced,
alcohol-induced blackout?

01:33:39.580 --> 01:33:43.313
This incredible arc from

01:33:43.313 --> 01:33:46.796
gutter to altar.

01:33:47.802 --> 01:33:50.153
[lively disco music]
♪ I came to dance ♪

01:33:51.235 --> 01:33:54.843
♪ I wanna dance ♪

01:33:54.843 --> 01:33:55.676
♪ I wanna dance ♪

01:33:55.676 --> 01:34:00.676
- [Chodo] There was a period
between my 20s and 30s

01:34:01.260 --> 01:34:06.135
that the possibility of death

01:34:06.135 --> 01:34:08.477
was kind of exciting.

01:34:11.370 --> 01:34:14.313
How could I use more drugs?

01:34:15.680 --> 01:34:19.523
Where would I find a more dangerous man?

01:34:19.523 --> 01:34:21.043
♪ I wanna dance, dance, dance ♪

01:34:21.043 --> 01:34:23.370
- Staring at death,

01:34:23.370 --> 01:34:24.770
it was like, "Come on, do it."

01:34:26.219 --> 01:34:28.802
[ominous ambient music]

01:34:30.917 --> 01:34:33.983
And one day, I woke up in the gutter.

01:34:35.620 --> 01:34:40.267
There was a voice in my
head that very clearly said,

01:34:40.267 --> 01:34:43.597
"Robert, this is the moment.

01:34:45.347 --> 01:34:47.890
"The only difference now between you

01:34:47.890 --> 01:34:51.823
"and the bum on the bowery are
the clothes you're wearing.

01:34:53.600 --> 01:34:55.513
"The gig is up."

01:34:58.490 --> 01:35:00.723
That was the death of my desire to die,

01:35:02.950 --> 01:35:04.620
because that's basically what I was doing

01:35:04.620 --> 01:35:08.484
throughout all my addictions,
was wanting to die.

01:35:10.167 --> 01:35:12.925
[resonant bell tone]

01:35:18.077 --> 01:35:20.350
What my meditation practice has given me

01:35:21.400 --> 01:35:25.010
is the opportunity to sit

01:35:25.010 --> 01:35:28.793
and simply be with everything that arises,

01:35:30.240 --> 01:35:32.083
from the horrors to the beauty.

01:35:33.800 --> 01:35:37.510
That's what keeps me sane,
knowing that, in this moment,

01:35:37.510 --> 01:35:41.093
what I truly have is this breath.

01:35:43.770 --> 01:35:45.670
I don't know that I have the next one.

01:35:46.700 --> 01:35:51.070
In Zen, we say, it's life
and death in each moment.

01:35:51.070 --> 01:35:53.653
In breath, life, out breath, death.

01:35:55.170 --> 01:35:58.600
We're being born and
we die in each moment,

01:35:58.600 --> 01:36:00.593
and that to me is the great liberator.

01:36:01.830 --> 01:36:04.743
I don't have to worry about
death down the road somewhere.

01:36:05.590 --> 01:36:06.423
It's here.

01:36:10.340 --> 01:36:13.620
But I wanted my practice to
be more than just meditating,

01:36:13.620 --> 01:36:16.263
and I began volunteering in hospice.

01:36:18.600 --> 01:36:22.470
There was something about
walking into that space

01:36:22.470 --> 01:36:25.623
where people were dying peacefully--

01:36:26.840 --> 01:36:29.290
where it wasn't about violence,

01:36:29.290 --> 01:36:31.160
where it wasn't about craziness,

01:36:31.160 --> 01:36:34.430
where it was just about entering

01:36:34.430 --> 01:36:38.890
into a space of sacredness and peace.

01:36:38.890 --> 01:36:42.170
Something inside me clicked.

01:36:42.170 --> 01:36:45.133
Oh, death can look like this.

01:36:49.530 --> 01:36:53.570
It was really my partner,
Koshin's grandmother, Mimi,

01:36:53.570 --> 01:36:55.540
that provided the stepping stone

01:36:55.540 --> 01:36:58.380
from volunteering in hospice

01:36:58.380 --> 01:37:01.063
to beginning my journey as a chaplain.

01:37:03.150 --> 01:37:06.293
- She had seen her sisters
go into nursing homes,

01:37:07.520 --> 01:37:09.170
and she came to a certain point.

01:37:09.170 --> 01:37:11.843
She's like, "I am not going to do that.

01:37:12.990 --> 01:37:16.883
"I want to stay home, and
I want to stay with you."

01:37:19.396 --> 01:37:20.923
And so I took care of her,

01:37:22.690 --> 01:37:27.690
and when she finally decided
that it was time for her dying,

01:37:29.580 --> 01:37:32.253
we moved in together into the hospice.

01:37:37.283 --> 01:37:40.490
And from watching her family members

01:37:40.490 --> 01:37:44.833
and friends coming to
visit, seeing their fear,

01:37:46.050 --> 01:37:48.943
seeing how they would stand
at the foot of the bed,

01:37:49.800 --> 01:37:54.800
holding, bracing the foot of
the bed, afraid to get close,

01:37:58.730 --> 01:38:03.350
and seeing how
heartbreaking it was for her

01:38:03.350 --> 01:38:05.993
that people were so afraid to be with her.

01:38:09.070 --> 01:38:12.950
So it was one night,
when she said, "Tonight,"

01:38:12.950 --> 01:38:14.943
she looked at her watch and she said--

01:38:15.810 --> 01:38:20.377
she sat up in her bed very
kind of official and she said,

01:38:20.377 --> 01:38:22.747
"Tonight is the night."

01:38:25.420 --> 01:38:28.650
Chodo and everybody was there,

01:38:28.650 --> 01:38:31.450
sitting around, like, on this vigil,

01:38:31.450 --> 01:38:33.237
thinking that she was going to die.

01:38:35.110 --> 01:38:40.110
She kept, like, looking at
her watch and then, you know.

01:38:40.826 --> 01:38:42.326
I can just like...

01:38:43.860 --> 01:38:45.460
Around like nine o'clock that night,

01:38:45.460 --> 01:38:48.660
she was like, "It's not going to happen."

01:38:48.660 --> 01:38:53.527
She said, "Let's get some
pizzas and some beers."

01:38:55.610 --> 01:38:57.640
- [Chodo] And she said to us,

01:38:57.640 --> 01:39:00.283
"There's something to
this Buddhist stuff--

01:39:01.230 --> 01:39:04.410
"being able to tell my life's story

01:39:04.410 --> 01:39:06.313
"and someone is listening to me."

01:39:07.640 --> 01:39:09.120
- She said, "You know, you and Chodo

01:39:09.120 --> 01:39:14.120
"should start this organization
and bring meditation--

01:39:14.350 --> 01:39:16.320
"teach people how to meditate,

01:39:16.320 --> 01:39:19.930
"and teach people how to care for people."

01:39:19.930 --> 01:39:23.070
She's like, "You guys are
good at that, you know?"

01:39:23.070 --> 01:39:28.070
And so our life now is really, to me,

01:39:29.320 --> 01:39:33.463
one of flowing from her blessing.

01:39:36.469 --> 01:39:39.669
[ethereal ambient music]

01:39:45.870 --> 01:39:48.660
- We hear so much about "the good death"

01:39:49.850 --> 01:39:51.663
and what the good death is,

01:39:53.503 --> 01:39:56.613
and that can actually
create a lot of damage

01:39:57.900 --> 01:39:59.253
if we're not careful.

01:40:01.210 --> 01:40:06.210
You know, people are often
losing control of their body.

01:40:07.800 --> 01:40:09.073
They're in diapers.

01:40:10.380 --> 01:40:14.773
They may be entering
into periods of dementia.

01:40:15.950 --> 01:40:18.253
Their whole world is changing.

01:40:19.650 --> 01:40:23.020
And they can be surrounded
by loving people

01:40:23.020 --> 01:40:24.353
in a beautiful home,

01:40:25.500 --> 01:40:27.773
but they're not feeling good about it.

01:40:29.230 --> 01:40:32.473
"I'm shitting myself. I hate this.

01:40:33.940 --> 01:40:36.113
"I don't want someone to feed me.

01:40:37.370 --> 01:40:41.573
"Why can't I die now, with some dignity?

01:40:44.770 --> 01:40:46.903
"My family doesn't want to hear it.

01:40:48.090 --> 01:40:51.713
"I can't tell them this sucks.

01:40:52.940 --> 01:40:56.763
"They want me to have a good
death, and I feel responsible."

01:41:01.040 --> 01:41:04.283
- There is a lot of judgment
around kinds of death,

01:41:05.770 --> 01:41:07.133
but who are we to say?

01:41:09.400 --> 01:41:13.230
There's this one person
who, at the end of his life,

01:41:13.230 --> 01:41:18.150
he shot up in bed and was so angry.

01:41:18.150 --> 01:41:21.311
And he shot up in bed and went, "Aaaahhh!"

01:41:23.530 --> 01:41:26.113
and fell back, and he was dead.

01:41:28.390 --> 01:41:30.283
It was extraordinary.

01:41:34.400 --> 01:41:39.400
So I've seen a lot of deaths--
from peaceful to raging

01:41:40.520 --> 01:41:45.500
to sorrowful, to completely comatose,

01:41:45.500 --> 01:41:49.883
to hooked up to a million
machines that do everything,

01:41:51.220 --> 01:41:56.220
to happy, ready.

01:41:58.960 --> 01:42:01.163
Let's have the whole world.

01:42:02.410 --> 01:42:05.460
The whole world is,
like, full of volcanoes

01:42:05.460 --> 01:42:09.952
and toxic dumps and rainbows

01:42:11.053 --> 01:42:13.870
and beautiful seashores,

01:42:13.870 --> 01:42:17.153
and why should our deaths be
any different from the world?

01:42:18.722 --> 01:42:21.805
[solemn piano music]

01:42:25.560 --> 01:42:28.451
- The story of my sponsor--

01:42:28.451 --> 01:42:31.026
my 12-step sponsor of 25 years--

01:42:32.900 --> 01:42:35.680
is the story of a good death

01:42:35.680 --> 01:42:38.923
that also contained all the indignities.

01:42:43.210 --> 01:42:46.530
Over the course of the last
four years of his life,

01:42:46.530 --> 01:42:49.450
he experienced his life getting smaller

01:42:49.450 --> 01:42:50.410
and smaller and smaller,

01:42:50.410 --> 01:42:52.883
his world getting smaller
and smaller and smaller.

01:42:54.700 --> 01:42:57.813
We had to sell the house in Long Island.

01:42:59.070 --> 01:43:02.780
He lived in a beautiful
apartment in the Village

01:43:02.780 --> 01:43:04.930
but he could no longer make the stairs,

01:43:04.930 --> 01:43:07.093
so we had to move him
into assisted living.

01:43:15.020 --> 01:43:18.763
It was a good death,
because all along the way

01:43:19.950 --> 01:43:23.863
he was enjoying himself,
even in his dementia.

01:43:26.610 --> 01:43:28.747
He had fun, I think, 'til the very end.

01:43:33.240 --> 01:43:36.490
In October, I think it was,
the hospice nurse came,

01:43:36.490 --> 01:43:38.300
and she said, "You know,

01:43:38.300 --> 01:43:41.030
"it's really a matter
of a couple of weeks.

01:43:41.030 --> 01:43:42.480
"I think we should start preparing.

01:43:42.480 --> 01:43:44.280
"He's not doing well."

01:43:44.280 --> 01:43:46.613
Well bugger me, if he doesn't rally.

01:43:48.716 --> 01:43:52.289
He started eating again, and
he wasn't quite so demented.

01:43:52.289 --> 01:43:55.040
I said to him, "Honey,
we're running out of money.

01:43:55.040 --> 01:43:56.233
"You can't rally.

01:43:57.950 --> 01:44:00.473
"Come March, we're done.

01:44:02.008 --> 01:44:04.560
"And we're gonna have to
move you into a nursing home.

01:44:04.560 --> 01:44:05.947
"Is that what you want?"

01:44:07.410 --> 01:44:11.970
And he said, "No, I do not want to end up

01:44:11.970 --> 01:44:12.860
in a nursing home."

01:44:12.860 --> 01:44:15.490
I said, "Well, then you
need to start thinking

01:44:15.490 --> 01:44:16.957
"how we're going to do this."

01:44:19.410 --> 01:44:22.240
We had a great Christmas, New Year's,

01:44:22.240 --> 01:44:24.790
and it looked like he was
not going to go anywhere.

01:44:26.880 --> 01:44:30.427
And now we've gone
through, like, $800,000,

01:44:31.447 --> 01:44:36.405
and I said to him, "Honey,
it's New Year's Eve.

01:44:38.180 --> 01:44:40.540
"You need to make some decisions."

01:44:40.540 --> 01:44:43.383
And he said, "I know.

01:44:44.610 --> 01:44:45.877
"Will you be here?"

01:44:45.877 --> 01:44:47.699
And I said, "Absolutely."

01:44:47.699 --> 01:44:49.049
He said, "Okay, I'm ready."

01:44:51.690 --> 01:44:53.107
He died January 9th.

01:44:59.550 --> 01:45:04.550
There's a silence that
ensues the last breath

01:45:04.870 --> 01:45:06.723
that is like no other silence.

01:45:07.580 --> 01:45:12.580
There is a presence in the room

01:45:13.483 --> 01:45:16.416
that cannot be explained.

01:45:17.586 --> 01:45:20.144
[unsettling ambient music]

01:45:21.100 --> 01:45:23.600
In Zen, we're very pragmatic.

01:45:23.600 --> 01:45:27.463
We don't know what's going to happen next.

01:45:29.060 --> 01:45:32.380
We certainly don't know what's
going to happen after we die.

01:45:32.380 --> 01:45:34.630
So there's this kind of finality.

01:45:34.630 --> 01:45:36.570
We die, and that's it, you know?

01:45:36.570 --> 01:45:39.750
We live in this moment, and
then we're gone in the next.

01:45:39.750 --> 01:45:44.750
And I am okay with that, and yet...

01:45:48.410 --> 01:45:53.410
I have seen the moments
following a person's death

01:45:55.120 --> 01:46:00.120
where something occurs that leaves me

01:46:00.330 --> 01:46:04.713
with the thought that
this is not all there is.

01:46:08.290 --> 01:46:12.633
I call it the silence of the leaving.

01:46:14.220 --> 01:46:15.473
- Sometimes you can feel, like,

01:46:15.473 --> 01:46:20.473
there's, like, some kind of
something still in the room,

01:46:20.810 --> 01:46:22.623
and then it dissipates.

01:46:23.770 --> 01:46:26.543
In the Jewish tradition,
they open the window

01:46:28.090 --> 01:46:30.353
so that the something can go out.

01:46:32.400 --> 01:46:35.760
People sometimes call it
the spirit or the soul

01:46:35.760 --> 01:46:38.640
or different things-- I
don't know what it is,

01:46:39.741 --> 01:46:42.472
and it does leave.

01:46:44.097 --> 01:46:47.013
[unsettling ambient music]

01:47:00.150 --> 01:47:01.940
[Multiple Voiceovers]
- Who knows what the spirit

01:47:01.940 --> 01:47:04.420
emanates into afterwards?

01:47:04.420 --> 01:47:07.640
- Everybody wants to know
what's on the other side.

01:47:07.640 --> 01:47:09.740
- Could there possibly be
a more important question?

01:47:09.740 --> 01:47:11.260
- What's the door you step through?

01:47:11.260 --> 01:47:12.580
- What comes after?

01:47:12.580 --> 01:47:14.560
- The question beyond all questions.

01:47:14.560 --> 01:47:15.950
- Nothing disappears, right?

01:47:15.950 --> 01:47:17.150
- It doesn't stop.

01:47:17.150 --> 01:47:18.440
- Everything transforms.

01:47:18.440 --> 01:47:19.463
- There is no end.

01:47:19.463 --> 01:47:20.620
- I just become pure energy.

01:47:20.620 --> 01:47:22.680
- There is no end to the end.

01:47:22.680 --> 01:47:24.440
- My atoms go back into the universe.

01:47:24.440 --> 01:47:27.110
They're on loan from the universe
and then I give them back.

01:47:27.110 --> 01:47:28.219
- We can live on, if you like,

01:47:28.219 --> 01:47:29.870
through the echo that we leave.

01:47:29.870 --> 01:47:31.620
- What is it that persists?

01:47:31.620 --> 01:47:33.600
It's the patterns of information.

01:47:33.600 --> 01:47:35.860
- Nature has the last say,

01:47:35.860 --> 01:47:38.820
and takes us back and greens us up again.

01:47:38.820 --> 01:47:42.510
- Spirit-like smoke goes
off into the stratosphere.

01:47:42.510 --> 01:47:43.867
We are the grass of the field--

01:47:43.867 --> 01:47:46.517
the wind blows across it and we are gone,

01:47:46.517 --> 01:47:48.750
and our place knows us no more.

01:47:50.040 --> 01:47:54.850
- Look up and wonder if
there's a cosmic shrug.

01:47:54.850 --> 01:47:56.160
- Staring into the great void?

01:47:56.160 --> 01:47:58.660
That's not particularly consoling.

01:47:58.660 --> 01:48:01.350
- Just because the cosmic drama is large

01:48:01.350 --> 01:48:05.480
doesn't mean that my place in
it is any less significant.

01:48:05.480 --> 01:48:07.827
- We were here, and then we weren't,

01:48:07.827 --> 01:48:10.420
and what did it all mean?

01:48:10.420 --> 01:48:11.840
- When you die, you die.

01:48:11.840 --> 01:48:14.310
- There's no grand plan involved.

01:48:14.310 --> 01:48:16.987
- Death has dominion over us all.

01:48:16.987 --> 01:48:19.253
- No, no, no.

01:48:21.060 --> 01:48:24.240
I am at some level ineradicable.

01:48:24.240 --> 01:48:26.730
- I do not believe this
thing I call a soul

01:48:26.730 --> 01:48:28.240
will die when this body dies.

01:48:28.240 --> 01:48:30.620
- There's a part of you that
lives on in the spirit world.

01:48:30.620 --> 01:48:32.280
- I believe the soul is infinite.

01:48:32.280 --> 01:48:34.500
- There is something divine in the world.

01:48:34.500 --> 01:48:36.970
There has to be something
that makes the universe hum,

01:48:36.970 --> 01:48:39.090
and the language of that divinity is love.

01:48:39.090 --> 01:48:40.740
- There's no attachments.

01:48:40.740 --> 01:48:42.500
- What about the afterlife?

01:48:42.500 --> 01:48:43.600
- There is no love.

01:48:43.600 --> 01:48:44.780
- What about that hope?

01:48:44.780 --> 01:48:46.410
- There is no joy.

01:48:46.410 --> 01:48:50.890
- If death was final, and
there was no resurrection,

01:48:50.890 --> 01:48:52.620
there would be no meaning for life.

01:48:52.620 --> 01:48:56.380
- I expect the glory and the opulence

01:48:56.380 --> 01:48:58.957
and the wonder of that transition.

01:48:58.957 --> 01:49:02.140
- It's a kind of an arrogance
to demand a second life.

01:49:02.140 --> 01:49:03.360
- What is that doing to
how we view this one?

01:49:03.360 --> 01:49:05.020
- This one is so beautiful.

01:49:05.020 --> 01:49:06.690
- Are we valuing the time we have now

01:49:06.690 --> 01:49:08.930
if we believe we have an
eternity in the future?

01:49:08.930 --> 01:49:12.280
- I can't imagine dying without faith.

01:49:12.280 --> 01:49:13.913
- You don't have to know.

01:49:13.913 --> 01:49:16.120
- I think it would drive me insane.

01:49:16.120 --> 01:49:18.850
- You don't have to know.

01:49:18.850 --> 01:49:22.030
- Although we profess
this incredible faith,

01:49:22.030 --> 01:49:26.203
I think deep down we are
all doubting Thomas's.

01:49:27.590 --> 01:49:29.010
- How do you deal with that?

01:49:29.010 --> 01:49:30.543
How do you live your life knowing

01:49:30.543 --> 01:49:32.103
that it's bounded by death?

01:49:37.507 --> 01:49:40.950
[somber instrumental music]

01:49:40.950 --> 01:49:42.620
- [Narrator] So on it goes,

01:49:42.620 --> 01:49:44.460
hurrying to the finish,

01:49:44.460 --> 01:49:48.330
turning and circling
for no goal or reason.

01:49:48.330 --> 01:49:52.250
A red, a green, a gray go rushing by,

01:49:52.250 --> 01:49:55.263
the shape of some child's
outline half begun.

01:49:56.330 --> 01:50:00.403
And time and again, a
smile is turned this way,

01:50:00.403 --> 01:50:03.870
a happy one that dazzles, unrestrained,

01:50:03.870 --> 01:50:07.543
and squandered on this
blind and breathless game.

01:50:10.090 --> 01:50:13.670
However we answer the question, "Why?,"

01:50:13.670 --> 01:50:16.770
we live with the ache of impermanence.

01:50:16.770 --> 01:50:19.143
Perhaps more so today than ever before.

01:50:20.870 --> 01:50:24.353
What we do know is that, one
day, the music will stop.

01:50:26.460 --> 01:50:29.770
We will lose everyone, every place,

01:50:29.770 --> 01:50:32.045
and everything we love,

01:50:34.268 --> 01:50:36.118
and finally ourselves.

01:50:40.270 --> 01:50:44.283
We have only one ride and we
should not squander it blindly.

01:50:45.870 --> 01:50:50.330
We can choose to see it
without aim or purpose,

01:50:50.330 --> 01:50:52.110
or see its flashing colors

01:50:52.110 --> 01:50:56.216
to be fashioned into
something rich and strange.

01:50:59.870 --> 01:51:02.320
If we have the privilege of health,

01:51:02.320 --> 01:51:06.550
of means and time, then we can prepare now

01:51:06.550 --> 01:51:08.650
to go beyond resignation,

01:51:08.650 --> 01:51:13.203
to push back against the fear
of death while loving life.

01:51:16.190 --> 01:51:18.920
We always come back to stories,

01:51:18.920 --> 01:51:21.253
to the solace they offer in sharing them.

01:51:22.220 --> 01:51:23.973
So you too have felt this way?

01:51:24.860 --> 01:51:26.003
So, I'm not alone.

01:51:28.980 --> 01:51:31.780
We can enter the world of joyful play

01:51:31.780 --> 01:51:34.503
and briefly step out
of time into eternity.

01:51:36.290 --> 01:51:38.743
We are no longer living towards death.

01:51:41.100 --> 01:51:44.963
It's a timelessness we can
also experience through art.

01:51:48.260 --> 01:51:52.883
By losing ourselves in compassion
for others, death recedes.

01:51:55.580 --> 01:51:58.470
We can see the natural
world, where we are born

01:51:58.470 --> 01:52:01.673
and live and die, as not the only one,

01:52:02.530 --> 01:52:06.843
but pointing to another where
love is not annihilated.

01:52:08.320 --> 01:52:12.973
But if love is extinguished,
and this is all there is,

01:52:13.931 --> 01:52:16.203
then to experience it as enough.

01:52:18.760 --> 01:52:22.020
We can see death as a worthy adversary,

01:52:22.020 --> 01:52:24.313
and say no to suffering and pain,

01:52:25.600 --> 01:52:28.443
using the power of
science in the struggle.

01:52:32.430 --> 01:52:34.300
But finally, never forgetting that

01:52:34.300 --> 01:52:35.790
the ache in the human heart

01:52:35.790 --> 01:52:40.510
is not simply for more
life, but richer life.

01:52:40.510 --> 01:52:44.983
The central pleasure of
a life fully lived, now--

01:52:48.609 --> 01:52:51.558
this is the most potent story of all.

01:52:53.500 --> 01:52:56.917
[gentle piano and string music]

01:53:08.200 --> 01:53:10.850
- I've had this work experience

01:53:12.640 --> 01:53:16.623
with you, Helen, for over 20 years.

01:53:18.780 --> 01:53:21.810
20 years, wow.

01:53:21.810 --> 01:53:25.431
Imagine-- ending up at 81,

01:53:25.431 --> 01:53:30.134
still editing, still having a passion

01:53:30.134 --> 01:53:32.617
for what I love to do,

01:53:34.091 --> 01:53:38.600
and having such a wonderful marriage.

01:53:38.600 --> 01:53:40.483
This has been a good life,

01:53:41.905 --> 01:53:44.833
and I can easily walk off the stage.

01:53:48.131 --> 01:53:50.297
I don't need an afterlife.

01:53:52.342 --> 01:53:56.342
[solemn piano and string music]

01:54:12.803 --> 01:54:17.069
[solemn piano and string music]

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