[Script Info]
Title: 
[Events]
Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: 0,0:00:00.77,0:00:03.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'm turning 44 next month,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:03.19,0:00:07.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and I have the sense that 44\Nis going to be a very good year,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:07.69,0:00:10.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a year of fulfillment, realization.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:11.53,0:00:12.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I have that sense,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:12.92,0:00:15.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,not because of anything\Nparticular in store for me,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:15.99,0:00:18.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but because I read it would be a good year
Dialogue: 0,0:00:18.77,0:00:21.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in a 1968 book by Norman Mailer.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:22.50,0:00:25.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"He felt his own age, forty-four ..."
Dialogue: 0,0:00:25.47,0:00:28.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,wrote Mailer in "The Armies of the Night,"
Dialogue: 0,0:00:28.42,0:00:30.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"... felt as if he were a solid embodiment
Dialogue: 0,0:00:30.90,0:00:34.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of bone, muscle, heart, mind,\Nand sentiment to be a man,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:34.70,0:00:36.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,as if he had arrived."
Dialogue: 0,0:00:37.21,0:00:39.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Yes, I know Mailer\Nwasn't writing about me.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:40.30,0:00:42.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But I also know that he was;
Dialogue: 0,0:00:42.62,0:00:46.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for all of us -- you, me,\Nthe subject of his book,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:46.62,0:00:48.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,age more or less in step,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:48.85,0:00:51.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,proceed from birth\Nalong the same great sequence:
Dialogue: 0,0:00:53.22,0:00:55.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,through the wonders\Nand confinements of childhood;
Dialogue: 0,0:00:56.42,0:00:59.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the emancipations\Nand frustrations of adolescence;
Dialogue: 0,0:01:00.38,0:01:03.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the empowerments\Nand millstones of adulthood;
Dialogue: 0,0:01:04.19,0:01:07.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the recognitions\Nand resignations of old age.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:08.39,0:01:10.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There are patterns to life,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:10.32,0:01:11.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and they are shared.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:12.23,0:01:17.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,As Thomas Mann wrote:\N"It will happen to me as to them."
Dialogue: 0,0:01:17.77,0:01:19.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We don't simply live these patterns.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:20.01,0:01:21.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We record them, too.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:21.77,0:01:24.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We write them down in books,\Nwhere they become narratives
Dialogue: 0,0:01:24.100,0:01:27.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that we can then read and recognize.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:27.67,0:01:29.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Books tell us who we've been,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:29.98,0:01:32.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,who we are, who we will be, too.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:33.49,0:01:35.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So they have for millennia.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:36.16,0:01:37.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,As James Salter wrote,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:37.83,0:01:41.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Life passes into pages\Nif it passes into anything."
Dialogue: 0,0:01:42.98,0:01:46.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And so six years ago,\Na thought leapt to mind:
Dialogue: 0,0:01:46.37,0:01:50.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,if life passed into pages,\Nthere were, somewhere,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:50.33,0:01:52.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,passages written about every age.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:52.71,0:01:56.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,If I could find them, I could\Nassemble them into a narrative.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:56.32,0:01:58.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I could assemble them into a life,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:58.38,0:02:01.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a long life, a hundred-year life,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:01.15,0:02:03.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the entirety of that same great sequence
Dialogue: 0,0:02:03.46,0:02:06.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,through which the luckiest among us pass.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:07.32,0:02:09.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I was then 37 years old,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:10.61,0:02:13.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"an age of discretion,"\Nwrote William Trevor.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:15.07,0:02:18.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I was prone to meditating on time and age.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:18.32,0:02:21.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,An illness in the family\Nand later an injury to me
Dialogue: 0,0:02:21.19,0:02:24.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,had long made clear that growing old\Ncould not be assumed.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:25.06,0:02:28.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And besides, growing old\Nonly postponed the inevitable,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:28.72,0:02:31.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,time seeing through\Nwhat circumstance did not.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:31.95,0:02:33.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It was all a bit disheartening.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:34.41,0:02:36.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,A list, though, would last.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:37.33,0:02:40.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,To chronicle a life\Nyear by vulnerable year
Dialogue: 0,0:02:40.50,0:02:43.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,would be to clasp and to ground\Nwhat was fleeting,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:43.76,0:02:47.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,would be to provide myself and others\Na glimpse into the future,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:47.13,0:02:48.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,whether we made it there or not.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:49.57,0:02:53.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And when I then began to compile my list,\NI was quickly obsessed,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:53.68,0:02:56.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,searching pages and pages\Nfor ages and ages.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:57.70,0:03:01.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Here we were at every annual step\Nthrough our first hundred years.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:02.62,0:03:05.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Twenty-seven ... a time\Nof sudden revelations,"
Dialogue: 0,0:03:07.05,0:03:10.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"sixty-two, ... of subtle diminishments."
Dialogue: 0,0:03:11.99,0:03:15.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I was mindful, of course,\Nthat such insights were relative.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:16.40,0:03:20.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,For starters, we now live longer,\Nand so age more slowly.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:21.15,0:03:24.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Christopher Isherwood used\Nthe phrase "the yellow leaf"
Dialogue: 0,0:03:24.34,0:03:26.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to describe a man at 53,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:26.51,0:03:30.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,only one century after Lord Byron\Nused it to describe himself at 36.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:30.85,0:03:33.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(Laughter)
Dialogue: 0,0:03:33.15,0:03:36.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I was mindful, too, that life\Ncan swing wildly and unpredictably
Dialogue: 0,0:03:36.80,0:03:38.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,from one year to the next,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:38.61,0:03:41.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and that people may experience\Nthe same age differently.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:42.04,0:03:45.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But even so, as the list coalesced,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:45.64,0:03:49.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,so, too, on the page, clear\Nas the reflection in the mirror,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:49.06,0:03:50.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,did the life that I had been living:
Dialogue: 0,0:03:51.71,0:03:55.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,finding at 20 that "... one is less\Nand less sure of who one is;"
Dialogue: 0,0:03:56.00,0:04:00.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,emerging at 30 from the "... wasteland\Nof preparation into active life;"
Dialogue: 0,0:04:01.06,0:04:05.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,learning at 40 "... to close softly\Nthe doors to rooms
Dialogue: 0,0:04:05.20,0:04:07.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[I would] not be coming back to."
Dialogue: 0,0:04:08.72,0:04:10.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There I was.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:11.88,0:04:14.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Of course, there we all are.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:14.76,0:04:17.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Milton Glaser, the great graphic designer
Dialogue: 0,0:04:17.22,0:04:20.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,whose beautiful\Nvisualizations you see here,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:20.52,0:04:22.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and who today is 85 --
Dialogue: 0,0:04:22.40,0:04:26.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,all those years "... a ripening\Nand an apotheosis," wrote Nabokov --
Dialogue: 0,0:04:27.21,0:04:30.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,noted to me that, like art and like color,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:31.46,0:04:34.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,literature helps us to remember\Nwhat we've experienced.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:35.10,0:04:38.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And indeed, when I shared\Nthe list with my grandfather,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:38.86,0:04:40.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,he nodded in recognition.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:41.34,0:04:44.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,He was then 95 and soon to die,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:45.23,0:04:47.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which, wrote Roberto Bolaño,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:47.38,0:04:49.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"... is the same as never dying."
Dialogue: 0,0:04:51.56,0:04:54.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And looking back, he said to me that, yes,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:55.36,0:04:59.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Proust was right that at 22,\Nwe are sure we will not die,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:01.87,0:05:04.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,just as a thanatologist\Nnamed Edwin Shneidman was right
Dialogue: 0,0:05:04.68,0:05:07.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that at 90, we are sure we will.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:09.23,0:05:10.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It had happened to him,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:11.23,0:05:12.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,as to them.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:15.48,0:05:16.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now the list is done:
Dialogue: 0,0:05:18.17,0:05:20.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a hundred years.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:21.44,0:05:23.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And looking back over it,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:24.30,0:05:26.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I know that I am not done.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:26.80,0:05:28.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I still have my life to live,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:28.92,0:05:31.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,still have many more pages to pass into.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:32.55,0:05:34.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And mindful of Mailer,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:34.42,0:05:36.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I await 44.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:36.75,0:05:37.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Thank you.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:37.95,0:05:48.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(Applause)