Tuesdays with Morrie
The Syllabus
p. 12-13
He was intent on proving that the word “dying” was not synonymous with “useless.”
When a colleague at Brandeis died suddenly of a heart attack, Morrie went to his funeral. He came home depressed.
“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.” Each of them spoke and paid tribute to my old professor. Some cried. Some laughed. One woman read a poem:
“My dear and loving cousin . . .
Your ageless heart
As you move through time, layer on layer,
Tender sequoia . . .”
Morrie cried and laughed with them. And all the heartfelt things we never get to say to those we love, Morrie said that day. His “living funeral” was a rousing success.
Only Morrie wasn’t dead yet.
想起《非诚勿扰2》里香山的追悼会，也是这么一场像是闹剧的悲剧。
The Student
p. 15-17
After the funeral, my life changed. I felt as if time was suddenly precious, water going down an open drain, and I could not move quickly enough.
…
I stopped renting. I started buying. I bought a house on a hill. I bought cars. I invested in stocks and built a portfolio. I was cranked to a fifth gear, and everything I did, I did on a deadline. I exercised like a demon. I drove my car at breakneck speed. I made more money than I had ever figured to see. I met a dark-haired woman named Janine who somehow loved me despite my schedule and the constant absences. We married after a seven-year courtship. I was back to work a week after the wedding. I told her – and myself – that we would one day start a family, something she wanted very much. But that day never came.
Instead, I buried myself in accomplishments, because with accomplishments, I believed I could control things, I could squeeze in every last piece of happiness before I got sick and died, like my uncle before me, which I figured was my natural fate.
The Audiovisual
p. 18
He wrote bite-sized philosophies about living with death’s shadow:
“Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do”;
“Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it”;
“Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others”;
“Don’t assume that it’s too late to get involved.”
p. 21
“Ted,” he said, “when all this started, I asked myself, ‘Am I going to withdraw from the world, like most people do, or am I going to live?’ I decided I’m going to live – or at least try to live – they way I want, with dignity, with courage, with humor, with composure.
“There are some mornings when I cry and cry and mourn for myself. Some mornings, I’m so angry and bitter. But it doesn’t last too long. Then I get up and say, ‘I want to live . . .’ ”
The Classroom
p.33
The eighties happened. The nineties happened. Death and sickness and getting fat and going bald happened. I traded lots of dreams for a bigger paycheck, and I never even realized I was doing it.
p.34
“Have you found someone to share your heart with?
“Are you giving to your community?
“Are you at peace with yourself?
“Are you trying to be as human as you can be?”
My days were full, yet I remained, much of the time, unsatisfied.
What happened to me?
我如此害怕自己有一天会突然醒悟过来，然后意识到自己从来没有真实地生活过。
Taking Attendance
p.42
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.
p.43
So many people walk around with a meaningless life. 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.
p.45
I was stunned at how easily things went on without me.
别把自己太当回事儿。
可我就是太把自己当回事儿了。
The First Tuesday
p. 52
The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let in come in.
Love the only rational act.
The Second Tuesday
p.57
I don’t allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each morning, a few tears, and that’s all.
How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self-pity.
p.61
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 Third Tuesday
p.64
We’re so wrapped up with egotistical things.
We’re involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going. So we don’t get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is this all I want? Is something missing?
“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” – Henry Adams
The Fourth Tuesday
p.82
Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.
If you accept that you can die at any time – then you might not be as ambitious as you are.
We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don’t satisfy us. The loving relationships we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted.
妈妈最近开始常常打电话来。这在过去四年都不曾发生过。
他们去医院体检。人老了，又不注意运动，这里那里的小毛病。
我意识到他们在渐渐老去。是看得到的衰老，肆意蔓延。
何苦走那么远呢。我是他们唯一的女儿，家里若有什么事情，我都不在他们身边。
害怕的是树欲静而风不止，子欲养而亲不在。
兜兜转转，最让我快乐的不过是一家团聚，最让他们安心的是我过得平安稳妥。
这都是些很微小平淡的幸福。
The Fifth Tuesday
p.91
Love each other or perish.
The Sixth Tuesday
p.104
Throw yourself into these emotions. By allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, ‘All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.’
是时候去学着控制自己的不安、焦虑与想念。
The Professor, Part Two
p. 113
Morrie always made good peace.
At Brandeis, he taught classes about social psychology, mental illness and health, group process. They were light on what you’d now call “career skills” and heavy on “personal development.”
And because of this, business and law students today might look at Morrie as foolishly naive about his contributions. How much money did his students go on to make? How many big-time cases did they win?
Then again, how many business or law students ever visit their old professors once they leave? Morrie’s students did that all the time. And in his final months, they came back to him, hundreds of them, from Boston, New York, California, London, and Switzerland; from corporate offices and inner city school programs. They called. They wrote. They drove hundreds of miles for a visit, a word, a smile.
“I’ve never had another teacher like you,” they all said.
Education is what’s left after you forget everything in the textbook.
The Seventh Tuesday
p.116
Forget what the culture says. I have ignored the culture much of my life. I am not going to be ashamed. What’s the big deal?
p.118
I embrace aging. It’s very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you’d always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay. It’s growth. It’s more than the negative that you’re going to die, it’s also the positive that you understand you’re going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.
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.
要优雅地老去。要让智慧与气质跟皱纹一起长起来。
p.120
The truth is, part of me is every age. I’m a three-year-old, I’m a five-year-old, I’m a thirty-seven-year old, I’m a fifty-year-old. I’ve been through all of them, and I know what it’s like. I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to e a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own.
How can I be envious of where you are – when I’ve been there myself?
The Eighth Tuesday
p.125
There were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can’t substitute material thing for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or four a sense of comradeship.
When you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you’re looking for, no matter how much of them you have.
一直在想，我是否被名利蒙蔽了双眼，被我在理智上最为唾弃的魔鬼牵住了牛鼻？
p.127
This is how you start to get respect, by offering something that you have.
Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
There’s nothing in there about a salary.
If you’re trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if you’re trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.
Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won’t be dissatisfied, you won’t be envious, you won’t be longing for somebody else’s things. On the contrary, you’ll be overwhelmed with what comes back.
“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.” – Mahatma Gandhi
The Eighth Tuesday
p.135
When Morrie was with you, he was really with you. He looked you straight in the eye, and he listened as if you were the only person in the world.
“I believe in being fully present,” Morrie said. “That means you should be with the person you’re with. When I’m talking to you now, I try to keep focused only on what is going on between us.”
“I am talking to you. I am thinking about you.”
p.136
“Part of the problem, Mitch, is that everyone is in such a hurry,” Morrie said. “People haven’t found meaning in their lives, so they’re running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they find those things are empty, too, and they keep running.”
Once you start running, I said, it’s hard to slow yourself down.
p.137
We are great at small talk: “What do you do?” “Where do you live?” But really listening to someone-without trying to sell them something, pick them up, recruit them, or get some kind of status in return – how often do we get this anymore?
p. 139
There would be lots of holding and kissing and talking and laughter and no good-byes left unsaid.
p. 149
Marriage: You get tested. You find out who you are, who the other person is, and how you accommodate or don’t.
Respect the other person
Know how to compromise
Talk openly about what goes on between you
Have a common set of values in life
Believe in the importance of your marriage
p. 154
I thought about how much time we spend trying to shape our bodies, lifting weights, crunching sit-ups, and in the end, nature takes it away from us anyhow.
The little things, I can obey. But the big things - how we think, what we value – those you must choose yourself. You can’t let anyone – or any society – determine those for you.
Be compassionate. And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place.
想起上个星期六在武吉知马山的蜿蜒泥泞小径中穿行时，偶遇三位佛教徒。听他们讲要放下，要心存善念。我一时好奇，便搭讪问如何区分善念与邪念。答曰：善念即为别人着想的念头，邪念为仅仅想着自己的念头。如果事事为别人着想，就能够放下自我，心里坦然，能活得更自在，毫无愧疚亏欠。
想起对于未来的决定，自始自终都是想着自己快乐，没有设身处地为父母着想。真是不孝。烦恼由心生。我只要想清楚在国立大学读书其实是最适合我自己未来发展、最能让我们一家三口在未来十年过得开心安逸的决定，就能够以平常心去申请奖学金，就不会有现在的压力与无助了。
我想我已经离解脱不远了。
生命是一个悟道的过程。我要相信，我是有灵气的人。
p. 157
We all have the same beginning – birth – and we all have the same end – death. So how different can we be?
Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you.
昨天跟欣晏、桐桐、lewis聚在一起。天南地北，嬉笑怒骂。
我想念我们当初做PW的那段日子了。我自认一直游离于社交圈子之外，但庆幸总有一帮子这样的人，尽管长久疏于联络，但需要的时候，就会有倾听的耳朵，可以无话不谈，没有秘密。
看着彼此成长，在岁月中老去，回忆曾经年少无知，互相调侃。同学之谊，大概便是如此吧。
p. 166
We need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn’t do. All the things we should have done. You can’t get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened.
Make peace. You need to make peace with yourself and everyone around you.
p. 174
As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on – in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.
Death ends a life, not a relationship.
p. 178
Love is when you are as concerned about someone else’s situation as you are about your own.
