Lesson 11 How to grow old

Song Lesson 11 How to grow old
Artist 英语听力
Album 新概念英语(第四册)

Lyrics

[00:01.46] Lesson 11
[00:03.20] How to grow old
[00:12.84] What, according to the author, is the best way to overcome the fear of death as you get older?
[00:22.43] Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death.
[00:27.13] In the young there is a justification for this feeling.
[00:31.12] Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle
[00:35.30] may justifiably feel bitter in the thought
[00:38.27] that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer.
[00:43.15] But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows,
[00:48.12] and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do,
[00:52.21] the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble.
[00:57.46] The best way to overcome it -- so at least it seems to me --
[01:01.79] is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal,
[01:06.93] until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede,
[01:11.94] and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.
[01:17.73] An individual human existence should be like a river --
[01:21.99] small at first, narrowly contained within its banks,
[01:26.38] and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls.
[01:32.29] Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly,
[01:39.27] and in the end, without any visiblebreak, they become merged in the sea,
[01:45.44] and painlessly lose their individual being.
[01:49.70] The man who, in old age can see his life in this way,
[01:54.58] will not suffer from the fear of death,
[01:57.68] since the things he cares for will continue.
[02:01.73] And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases,
[02:06.66] the thought of rest will be not unwelcome.
[02:10.85] I should wish to die while still at work,
[02:13.91] knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do,
[02:18.35] and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.