22_Tuesday with Morrie

Blue_noblue2025-06-042025-06-05

“When you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

自述

突然想到Soul这个电影了，有什么问题是直到我们生命的最后才能清楚的意识到的？Morrie在弥留之际和Mitch进行了他们Tuesday people的对话，探讨了以下的话题。

3n + 1	3n + 2	3n + 3
the World	Feeling Sorry for Yourself	Regrets
Death	Family	Emotions
Fear of Aging	Money	How love goes on
Marriage	Our Culture	Forgiveness
the Perfect Day

关于个人的情绪和对生活的态度，关于价值观，关于我们的文化和我们的世界，关于我们的爱人和家人。多即是好吗？当大家不加思索如争取那些正确的东西的时候，我们是否想过我们是自愿的选择还是我们的文化所施加的？向来如此，便对吗？我承认有的时候迷茫的时候，让自己动起来，追求一些东西没有问题，但之后呢？有些东西并不一定要从年轻的时候就拥有，一个人一个公司可以在最开始的时候野蛮生长，最后再归化，但我们的下线和原则又在哪里呢？内卷的时代，似乎更说明了选择大于盲目这回事情。从世俗的意义上来说，或许更善良更特别的人不会那么的成功，但或许这个极端也不必抵达，当我们沉浸于竞争、淘汰的赛场时，遇到一些新的观点调和一下目前的状态，会更好些。

摘抄

The Syllabus

“What a waste,” he said. “All those people saying all those wonderful things, and Irv never got to hear any of it.” Morrie had a better idea. He made some calls. He chose a date. And on a cold Sunday afternoon, he was joined in his home by a small group of friends and family for a “living funeral.”

The Classroom

He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth.
“Love wins. Love always wins.”

Taking Attendance

I remembered what Morrie said during our visit: “The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.”
They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
I was stunned at how easily things went on without me.
He speaks of the alienation of youth and the need for “connectedness” with the society around me.

The First Tuesday We Talk About the World

Yeah, yeah, I said. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. We laughed because he used to say the same thing nearly twenty years earlier. Mostly on Tuesdays.
What’s that? “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Let it come in. We think we don’t deserve love, we think if we let it in we’ll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said, `Love is the only rational act.'” He repeated it carefully, pausing for effect.
My are we embarrassed by silence?

The Second Tuesday We Talk About Feeling Sorry for Yourself

“Mitch, I don’t allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each morning, a few tears, and that’s all.”
“You see,” he says to the girl, “you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too-even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.”

The Audiovisual, Part Two

Ted, we’ve had thirty-five years of friendship. You don’t need speech or hearing to feel that.”

The Professor

In his mind he believed he could make the illness go away by ignoring it.

The Fourth Tuesday We Talk About Death

“Everyone knows they’re going to die,” he said again, “but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.”
“The truth is, Mitch,” he said, “once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

The Fifth Tuesday We Talk About Family

“Love each other or perish.” I wrote it down. Auden said that?
“This is part of what a family is about, not just love, but letting others know there’s someone who is watching out for them. It’s what I missed so much when my mother died-what I call your `spiritual security’-knowing that your family will be there watching out for you.
If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children.
As different as we were, I reasoned that our fates would shoot in opposite directions once we hit adulthood.
I worked because I could control it. I worked because work was sensible and responsive.

The Sixth Tuesday We Talk About Emotions

But detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully.
“Take any emotion-love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I’m going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions-if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them-you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.
When you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”
Morrie’s approach was exactly the opposite. Turn on the faucet. Wash yourself with the emotion.

The Seventh Tuesday We Talk About the Fear o f Aging

I have ignored the culture much of my life. I am not going to be ashamed. What’s the big deal?
Aging is not just decay, you know. It’s growth.
Lives that haven’t found meaning. Because if you’ve found meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can’t wait until sixty-five.” Listen. You should know something.
“You have to find what’s good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now. Looking back makes you competitive.

The Eighth Tuesday We Talk About Money

This is how you start to get respect, by offering something that you have.
I wrote it down, but now I can recite it: Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
I jotted some of the things Morrie was saying on a yellow pad. I did this mostly because I didn’t want him to see my eyes, to know what I was thinking, that I had been, for much of my life since graduation, pursuing these very things he had been railing against-bigger toys, nicer house.
But giving to other people is what makes me feel alive.
'Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn. ” --MAHATMA GANDHI

The Ninth Tuesday We Talk About How Love Goes On

This time, I was in less of a hurry to finish.
I would raise my hand, as if I was going to make a negative gesture, and then I would wave and smile. Instead of giving them the finger, you let them go, and you smile.
He was always ready to openly display the emotion so often missing from my baby boomer generation.

The Tenth Tuesday We Talk About Marriage

They don’t know what they want in a partner. They don’t know who they are themselves-so how can they know who they’re marrying?”
He ended the subject by quoting the poem he believed in like a prayer: “Love each other or perish.”

The Eleventh Tuesday We Talk About Our Culture

If we saw each other as more alike, we might be very eager to join in one big human family in this world, and to care about that family the way we care about our own.

The Audiovisual, Part Three

“For me, Ted, living means I can be responsive to the other person. It means I can show my emotions and my feelings. Talk to them. Feel with them . . .”

The Twelfth Tuesday We Talk About Forgiveness

“Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Don’t wait, Mitch. Not everyone gets the time I’m getting. Not everyone is as lucky.”

The Thirteenth Tuesday We Talk About the Perfect Day

Maybe you’re too used to that. Love is different. Love is when you are as concerned about someone else’s situation as you are about your own.

Conclusion

But if Professor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as “too late” in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye.