I am going to first tell you something
that in my grandmother would have
elicited a five-alarm Oh yo yo yo yo and
are you ready okay I have a Stage four
lung cancer oh I know poor me I don't
feel that way I'm so okay with it
I simply just don't understand the
mindset of people who are out to defeat
death and overcome death how do you do
that how do you defeat death without
coming off life I it doesn't make sense
to me I also have to say I find it
incredibly ungrateful it's disrespectful
to nature the idea that we're going to
dominate nature we're going to master
nature nature's too weak to understand
our intellect no I don't think so I am
incredibly grateful for life but I don't
want to be immortal I have no entry I
have no interest in having my name live
on after me and in fact I don't want it
to I love being in sync with the
cyclical rhythms of the universe
that's what's so extraordinary about
life it's a cycle of generation
degeneration regeneration I I'm just a
collection of particles that is arranged
into this pattern then we'll decompose
and be available all of its constituent
parts to nature to reorganize into
another pattern to me that is so
and it makes me even more grateful to be
part of that process I look at death now
from the point of view of a German
biologist Andreas weather who looks at
it as part of the gift economy you're
given this enormous gift life you enrich
it as best you can and then you give it
back and you know Auntie Mame said life
I have had an enormous appetite for life
I've consumed life but in death I'm
going to be concerned I'm going into the
ground just the way I am and there I am
fight every microbe and the traitor sir
and a composer to have their I think
they'll find me delicious so the best
thing about my attitude I think is that
it's real it's not you can see it you
can observe it it actually happens it's
not as well maybe not my enriching the
gift I don't know about that but my life
has certainly been enriched by other
people and I'm so grateful to you I
don't want to say the audience because I
don't really see it as we're two
separate things I think of it in terms
of quantum physics again and you know
quantum physicists are not exactly sure
what happens when the wave becomes a
particle there are different theories
the collapse of the wave function
decoherent but they're all agreed on one
thing that reality comes into being
through an interactions and every
audience I've ever had past and present
thank you so much for making my life
