Chapter 10 What is your 3rd Tuesday regret?

The next Tuesday, I went to visit as usual with big bags and small bags of food, this time there were macaroni, potato salad, apple juice, etc., and one more thing: a Sony tape recorder. I told Murray I wanted to be able to record what we talked about.I wish to record your voice so I can listen to it later. After I die. don't say that. He laughed.Mitch, I'm going to die, and sooner rather than later. He looked at the new machine and said: It's a big one.Just like journalists often feel, I feel like I'm prying into someone's privacy, which is very rude.It is really inappropriate to put a tape recorder among friends like us, as if someone is eavesdropping.With so many people waiting to make an appointment with him, I may have taken up too much of his time by seeing him every Tuesday.

I said, listen, if this makes you uncomfortable, we don't use it, and picked up the tape recorder.He stopped me with a wag of a finger, and then with his hand he pulled off the glasses on the bridge of his nose, which hung around his neck with a thin cord.He looked directly at me and said: Let it go. I put the tape recorder down. Mitch, he said softly: You don't understand.I'm going to tell you about my life, and I'm going to tell you while I can. He lowered his voice again, as if whispering: I want others to hear my story, would you like it? I nodded. We sat for a while without saying a word.

So, he said: Is the tape recorder on? To be honest, the tape recorder is not just a tool for me to record the past.I am losing Murray, all of us his family and friends, his former students, his fellow professors, old acquaintances from the political discussion groups he avidly attended, his former dance partners are losing him.I think audio recordings are like photographs and video recordings, a helpless attempt to snatch something out of the clutches of death. And I also came to know that Murray, with his courage, humor, patience, and openness, saw life from a quite different perspective, a healthier perspective, a more reasonable perspective.And he was dying.It's unlike anyone I've ever known.

If your eyes meet death, and your thoughts become almost miraculously transparent, then I know that Murray wants to share his thoughts with others, and I also hope to keep them in my heart forever. When I saw Murray on the "Nightline" program, I thought in my heart, what unfinished regrets does he have in his heart when he knows that he is about to die?Does he mourn for lost friends?Did he wish some things could be done all over again?I asked myself, if I were in the same situation as him, would I grieve thinking of the many things I have lost?Would I regret not having revealed some secret to someone?

I spoke to Murray about it, and he nodded.This is something that worries everyone, isn't it?If today was the last day of my life, what would I do?He watched my face carefully, maybe he saw that I was hesitant to talk about it.I seem to see myself passing out on the table one day, halfway through writing the manuscript in hand, the medical staff came to take me away, and the editorial supervisor of the newspaper was only concerned with sending out my manuscript. Mickey?Murray asked. I shook my head and said nothing.Murray took aim at my hesitation. Mitch, he said: Our culture doesn't encourage you to think about these things until you're dying.We are so busy being self-centered all day, caring about our career, our family, making money, paying off our mortgage, buying a new car, fixing the heater when it’s broken, we’re busy with a thousand and one chores, and we let ourselves live like this.So we are not used to stepping back, looking at our own life with cold eyes, and asking: Is this what life is like?Is this all I want?Is something missing?

He paused. You need someone to poke you in the back.You don't think of it yourself. I know what he's talking about.We all need mentors in our lives. My mentor is sitting right in front of me. Very good, I thought.If I'm being a student, I'm trying to be as good a student as possible. On the flight home that day, I made a list in a Yellow Pages notebook of the problems we all face, from happiness to old age to parenthood to death.Of course, there are a million practical books on these issues, as well as numerous Channel 4 talk shows and ninety-dollar-an-hour counseling sessions.America is a hypermarket for self-education.

Even so, finding a definite answer still seems out of reach.Should you care about others, or should you care about the child in your heart?Do we want to return to traditional values, or discard tradition as useless old goods?Do you want to pursue success or pursue simplicity?Just Say No, or Just Do It? I only know one thing: my old professor Murray is not in the field of self-help.Standing on the railway, listening to the top-notch siren of the death train, he knows exactly what is important in life. I want his clarity.Every bewildered and bewildered human being I know wants this clarity.

Murray always said: Ask me some questions. So I make this list: die fear senescence greedy family society forgive meaningful life I had this list in my bag on my fourth trip back to West Newtown.It was a Tuesday in late August, and the air conditioner in the airport terminal was broken. People were sweating profusely against the wind, and every face I saw looked like it was on fire enough to kill. ◇◇◇ By the beginning of my senior year, I had already taken a lot of sociology classes and was only a few credits short of my degree, so Murray suggested that I might as well write a dissertation.

I?What topic should I write about? What are you interested in?he asks. We discussed it over and over again, and finally decided to set the topic as a sport.This is where I embarked on a year-long study examining how American football became a ritualized sport in America, almost a religion, an opiate of the masses.Little did I know at the time that this would be a pre-training for my future career, all I knew was that it would give me another opportunity to meet with Murray once a week to discuss it. With his assistance, by the beginning of the spring I had written a 112-page dissertation, with research experience and many notes, the materials were neatly sorted out, and bound in a decent black leather cover.I showed Murray the paper, and it felt like a Little League player running home after hitting his first home run.

Murray said: Congratulations. I smiled as he flipped through the pages, looking around his office.Rows of books, hardwood floors, area rugs, sofa chairs.I thought to myself, I have probably sat in all the places in this room where people can sit. Murray adjusted his glasses as he read, and said, Mitch, what should I say, we want you to go on to graduate school when you write a thesis like this. I said, yes, do me a favor. I giggled, but for a moment the idea was attractive to him.I was a little terrified of graduating and leaving school soon, but another part of me wanted to graduate as soon as possible.The balance of opposites.I watched Murray flip through my thesis, wondering what the outside world was like.