One year ago, I rented a car in Jerusalem to go find a man I never met but who had changed my life. I didn't have a phone number to call to say I was coming. I didn't have an exact address, but I knew his name, Abed, I knew that he lived in a town of 15,000, Kafr Qara, and I knew that, 21 years before, just outside this holy city, he broke my neck.
Pre godinu dana iznajmio sam kola u Jerusalimu kako bih našao čoveka koga nikada nisam upoznao, ali koji mi je promenio život. Nisam imao broj telefona da ga pozovem i najavim svoj dolazak. Nisam imao tačnu adresu, ali sam znao njegovo ime, Abed. Znao sam da živi u gradu sa 15 000 stanovnika Kfar Kari i znao sam da mi je pre 21 godinu, izvan ovog svetog grada, slomio vrat.
And so, on an overcast morning in January, I headed north off in a silver Chevy, to find a man and some peace. The road dropped, and I exited Jerusalem. I then rounded the very bend where his blue truck, heavy with four tons of floor tiles, had borne down with great speed onto the back left corner of the minibus where I sat. I was then 19 years old. I'd grown five inches and done some 20,000 pushups in eight months, and the night before the crash, I delighted in my new body, playing basketball with friends into the wee hours of a May morning. I palmed the ball in my large right hand, and when that hand reached the rim, I felt invincible. I was off in the bus to get the pizza I'd won on the court.
Tako sam se jednog tmurnog jutra u januaru zaputio na sever u sivom ševroletu, da pronađem čoveka i mir. Sišao sam s puta i izašao iz Jerusalima. Skrenuo upravo na toj krivini gde je njegov plavi kamion natovaren pločicama težine od 4 tone ogromnom brzinom uleteo u zadnji deo leve strane minibusa u kojem sam sedeo. Tada sam imao 19 godina. Porastao sam desetak cantimetara i uradio oko 20 000 sklekova za osam meseci, a veče pre sudara oduševljen svojim novim telom igrao sam košarku s prijateljima do sitnih sati majskog jutra. Zahvatio sam loptu sa svojom krupnom desnom šakom i kada je ta ruka dotakla obruč, osetio sam se nepobedivim. Autobusom sam krenuo po picu koju sam osvojio na terenu.
I didn't see Abed coming. From my seat, I was looking up at a stone town on a hilltop, bright in the noontime sun, when from behind there was a great bang, as loud and violent as a bomb. My head snapped back over my red seat, my eardrum blew, my shoes flew off. I flew too, my head bobbing on broken bones, and when I landed, I was a quadriplegic. Over the coming months, I learned to breathe on my own, then to sit and to stand and to walk. But my body was now divided vertically. I was a hemiplegic, and back home in New York, I used a wheelchair for four years, all through college.
Nisam video Abeda kako nailazi. Sa svog sedišta gledao sam u grad od kamenja na vrhu brda, osunčan podnevnim suncem, kada se otpozadi čuo strahovit prasak, glasan kao siloviti udar bombe. Glava mi je poletela unazad preko crvenog sedišta. Bubne opne su mi ekspolodirale. Cipele su mi sletele. Poleteo samo i glava mi se klatila na slomljenim kostima, a kada sam sleteo, bio sam kvadriplegičar. Narednih meseci naučio sam samostalno da dišem, zatim da sedim i stojim i hodam, ali telo mi je sada bilo vertikalno podeljeno. Bio sam hemiplegičar i nakon povratka kući u Njujork četiri godine sam bio u kolicima, za sve vreme trajanja mojih studija.
College ended and I returned to Jerusalem for a year. There, I rose from my chair for good, I leaned on my cane, and I looked back, finding all, from my fellow passengers in the bus to photographs of the crash. And when I saw this photograph -- I didn't see a bloody and unmoving body. I saw the healthy bulk of a left deltoid, and I mourned that it was lost, mourned all I had not yet done, but was now impossible.
Završio sam fakultet i vratio se u Jerusalim na godinu dana. Tamo sam konačno ustao iz kolica oslonio se na svoj štap i osvrnuo se unazad pronalazeći sve, od mojih saputnika u autobusu, do slika sudara i kada sam video ovu sliku, nisam video krvavo i nepokretno telo. Video sam zdravu masu levog deltoida i žalio sam nad njenim gubitkom, žalio sam zbog svega što još nisam uradio, a što je sada bilo nemoguće.
It was then I read the testimony that Abed gave the morning after the crash, of driving down the right lane of a highway toward Jerusalem. Reading his words, I welled with anger. It was the first time I'd felt anger toward this man, and it came from magical thinking. On this xeroxed piece of paper, the crash had not yet happened. Abed could still turn his wheel left so that I would see him whoosh by out my window. and I would remain whole. "Be careful, Abed, look out. Slow down." But Abed did not slow, and on that xeroxed piece of paper, my neck again broke, and again, I was left without anger.
Tada sam pročitao Abedovo svedočenje jutro nakon nesreće, kako je vozio desnom trakom autoputa ka Jerusalimu. Čitajući njegove reči, kipteo sam od besa. Bilo je to prvi put da sam osetio bes ka ovom čoveku i bilo je to zbog magijskog mišljenja. Na ovom štampanom parčetu papira, sudar se još nije desio. Abed je još uvek mogao da okrene volan nalevo i ja bih ga kroz prozor video kako proleće i ostao bih ceo. "Pazi, Abede, pazi. Uspori." Ali Abed nije usporio i na tom štampanom parčetu papira, moj vrat je ponovo bio slomljen i bes je ponovo prošao.
I decided to find Abed, and when I finally did, he responded to my Hebrew "Hello" which such nonchalance, it seemed he'd been awaiting my phone call. And maybe he had. I didn't mention to Abed his prior driving record -- 27 violations by the age of 25, the last, his not shifting his truck into a low gear on that May day -- and I didn't mention my prior record -- the quadriplegia and the catheters, the insecurity and the loss -- and when Abed went on about how hurt he was in the crash, I didn't say that I knew from the police report that he'd escaped serious injury. I said I wanted to meet. Abed said that I should call back in a few weeks, and when I did and a recording told me that his number was disconnected, I let Abed and the crash go.
Odlučio sam da pronađem Abeda i kada sam ga konačno našao, odgovorio je na moj hebrejski pozdrav s tolikom nonšalantnošću da je delovalo kao da je očekivao moj poziv. Možda i jeste. Nisam spomenuo Abedu njegov dosije prekršaja u vožnji - 27 prekršaja do 25. godine, poslednji, to što nije smanjio brzinu svog kamiona tog majskog dana - i nisam mu spomenuo svoj dosije - kvadriplegiju i katetere, nesigurnost i gubitak - i kada je Abed pričao o tome koliko je bio povređen u sudaru nisam mu rekao da iz izveštaja policije znam da je prošao bez ozbiljnijih povreda. Rekao sam da bih želeo da se nađemo. Abed je rekao da ga pozovem za nekoliko nedelja, a kada sam ga pozvao, automatska poruka mi je saopštila da je njegov broj isključen. Ostavio sam Abeda i sudar iza sebe.
Many years passed. I walked with my cane and my ankle brace and a backpack on trips in six continents. I pitched overhand in a weekly softball game that I started in Central Park, and home in New York, I became a journalist and an author, typing hundreds of thousands of words with one finger. A friend pointed out to me that all of my big stories mirrored my own, each centering on a life that had changed in an instant, owing, if not to a crash, then to an inheritance, a swing of the bat, a click of the shutter, an arrest. Each of us had a before and an after. I'd been working through my lot after all.
Prošlo je mnogo godina. Uz pomoć svog štapa i steznika na članku, sa ruksakom na leđima, hodao sam na putovanjima preko šest kontinenata. Bio sam bacač na nedeljnim utakmicama softbola koje sam započeo u Central parku, a kod kuće u Njujorku sam postao novinar i pisac kucajući stotine i hiljade reči samo jednim prstom. Prijatelj mi je ukazao na to da su sve moje velike priče odraz moje sopstvene, svaka od njih se bavi životom koji se promenio u trenutku, ako ne zbog sudara, onda zbog nasleđa, zamaha palice, sevanja blica, hapšenja. Svako od nas je imao jedno "pre" i "posle". Na kraju krajeva, nosio sam se sa svojom sudbinom.
Still, Abed was far from my mind, when last year, I returned to Israel to write of the crash, and the book I then wrote, "Half-Life," was nearly complete when I recognized that I still wanted to meet Abed. And finally, I understood why: to hear this man say two words: "I'm sorry." People apologize for less.
Abed je bio daleko od mojih misli kada sam se prošle godine vratio u Izrael da pišem o sudaru i knjiga koju sam napisao "Polu-život" je bila gotovo završena kada sam shvatio da još uvek želim da upoznam Abeda i konačno sam razumeo zašto: kako bih čuo tog čoveka da izgovara reči: "Žao mi je." Ljudi se izvinjavaju i za manje stvari.
And so I got a cop to confirm that Abed still lived somewhere in the same town, and I was now driving to it with a potted yellow rose in the back seat, when suddenly flowers seemed a ridiculous offering. But what to get the man who broke your fucking neck?
Policajac mi je potvrdio da Abed i dalje živi negde u tom istom gradu i vozio sam do tamo sa saksijom žute ruže na zadnjem sedištu, kada mi se cvet odjednom učinio kao smešna ponuda. Ali šta pokloniti čoveku koji je slomio tvoj jebeni vrat?
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
I pulled into the town of Abu Ghosh, and bought a brick of Turkish delight: pistachios glued in rosewater. Better. Back on Highway 1, I envisioned what awaited. Abed would hug me. Abed would spit at me. Abed would say, "I'm sorry." I then began to wonder, as I had many times before, how my life would have been different had this man not injured me, had my genes been fed a different helping of experience. Who was I? Was I who I had been before the crash, before this road divided my life like the spine of an open book? Was I what had been done to me? Were all of us the results of things done to us, done for us, the infidelity of a parent or spouse, money inherited? Were we instead our bodies, their inborn endowments and deficits? It seemed that we could be nothing more than genes and experience, but how to tease out the one from the other? As Yeats put that same universal question, "O body swayed to music, o brightening glance, how can we know the dancer from the dance?"
Ušao sam u grad Abu Goš i kupio parče turskog delikatesa: pistaće u ružinoj vodici. Bolje. U povratku na Autoput 1, zamišljao sam ono što me očekuje. Abed će me zagrliti. Abed će me pljunuti. Abed će reći: "Žao mi je." Onda sam počeo da se pitam, kao što sam to radio i bezbroj puta ranije, kako bi mi život bio drugačiji da me ovaj čovek nije povredio, da su moji geni bili izloženi drugačijem iskustvu. Ko sam bio ja? Jesam li ja bio ona osoba pre sudara, pre nego što je ovaj put razdvojio moj život kao što povez deli otvorenu knjigu? Jesam li ja bio ono što mi je učinjeno? Jesmo li svi mi rezultat stvari koje su nam učinjene, koje su učinjene za nas, neverstvo partnera ili supružnika, novac koji smo nasledili? Ili smo mi naša tela, njihove urođene prednosti i mane? Činilo se da ne možemo biti ništa više do gena i iskustava, ali kako razdvojiti jedno od drugog? Jejts je postavio isto univerzalno pitanje: "O telo, muzikom pokrenuto, o, oko sjajno, kako razaznati ples od plesača?"
I'd been driving for an hour when I looked in my rear view mirror and saw my own brightening glance. The light my eyes had carried for as long as they had been blue. The predispositions and impulses that had propelled me as a toddler to try and slip over a boat into a Chicago lake, that had propelled me as a teen to jump into wild Cape Cod Bay after a hurricane. But I also saw in my reflection that, had Abed not injured me, I would now, in all likelihood, be a doctor and a husband and a father. I would be less mindful of time and of death, and, oh, I would not be disabled, would not suffer the thousand slings and arrows of my fortune. The frequent furl of five fingers, the chips in my teeth come from biting at all the many things a solitary hand cannot open. The dancer and the dance were hopelessly entwined.
Vozio sam se već sat vremena kada sam pogledao u retrovizor i video sjaj u svom oku. Svetlost mojih očiju je bila tu od kada su one bile plave. Sklonosti i impulsi koji su me naveli da kao dete pokušam da ispadnem iz čamca i upadnem u čikaško jezero, koji su me kao tinejdžera naveli da skočim u divljajući zaliv Kejp Kod nakon uragana. Ali sam u svom odrazu takođe video da bih, da me Abed nije povredio, sada najverovatnije bio lekar i muž i otac. Bio bih manje svestan vremena i smrti i naravno, ne bih bio hendikepiran, ne bih poklekao pod strelama sudbine. Često grčenje prstiju, okrnjeni zubi, sve je to rezultat griženja mnogobrojnih stvari koje jedna ruka ne može da otvori. Plesač i ples su beznadežno isprepletani.
It was approaching 11 when I exited right toward Afula, and passed a large quarry and was soon in Kafr Qara. I felt a pang of nerves. But Chopin was on the radio, seven beautiful mazurkas, and I pulled into a lot by a gas station to listen and to calm. I'd been told that in an Arab town, one need only mention the name of a local and it will be recognized. And I was mentioning Abed and myself, noting deliberately that I was here in peace, to the people in this town, when I met Mohamed outside a post office at noon. He listened to me. You know, it was most often when speaking to people that I wondered where I ended and my disability began. For many people told me what they told no one else. Many cried. And one day, after a woman I met on the street did the same and I later asked her why, she told me that, best she could tell, her tears had had something to do with my being happy and strong, but vulnerable too. I listened to her words, I suppose they were true. I was me, but I was now me despite a limp, and that, I suppose, was what now made me, me.
Bilo je skoro 11 sati kada sam skrenuo desno ka Afuli, prošao veliki kamenolom i uskoro sam se našao u Kfar Kari. Bio sam nervozan. Ali je Šopen bio na radiju, sedam prelepih mazurki, i zaustavio sam se na parkingu benzinske pumpe da ih slušam i da se smirim. Rečeno mi je da je u arapskom gradu dovoljno reći ime meštana i da će ga ljudi prepoznati. Spominjao sam Abeda i sebe, namerno naglašavajući da dolazim u miru ljudima iz grada, kada sam u podne sreo Mohameda ispred pošte. On me je saslušao. Znate, najčešće sam se tokom razgovora s ljudima pitao gde se ja završavam, a gde počinje moj hendikep jer su mi mnogi ljudi govorili stvari koje nikom drugom nisu rekli. Mnogi su plakali. Jednog dana, nakon što je jedna žena na ulici učinila upravo to, pitao sam je zašto i ona mi je objasnila, najbolje što je mogla, da su njene suze povezane s tim što sam ja srećan i jak, ali istovremeno i ranljiv. Slušao sam njene reči. Pretpostavljam da su bile istinite. Ja sam bio ja, ali sada sam ja bio ja uprkos šepanju i pretpostavljam da je to ono što me je načinilo onim što jesam.
Anyway, Mohamed told me what perhaps he would not have told another stranger. He led me to a house of cream stucco, then drove off. And as I sat contemplating what to say, a woman approached in a black shawl and black robe. I stepped from my car and said "Shalom," and identified myself, and she told me that her husband Abed would be home from work in four hours. Her Hebrew was not good, and she later confessed that she thought that I had come to install the internet.
U svakom slučaju, Mohamed mi je rekao ono što verovatno ne bi rekao nekom drugom strancu. Odveo me je do bež kuće od gipsanog maltera i onda se odvezao. Dok sam sedeo razmišljajući o tome šta bih rekao, prišla mi je žena sa crnom maramom i u crnoj odori. Izašao sam iz kola i rekao: "Šalom" i predstavio sam se, a ona mi je rekla da se njen muž Abed vraća s posla za četiri sata. Njen hebrejski nije bio dobar i kasnije je priznala da je mislila da sam došao da im uvedem internet.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
I drove off and returned at 4:30, thankful to the minaret up the road that helped me find my way back. And as I approached the front door, Abed saw me, my jeans and flannel and cane, and I saw Abed, an average-looking man of average size. He wore black and white, slippers over socks, pilling sweatpants, a piebald sweater, a striped ski cap pulled down to his forehead. He'd been expecting me, Mohamed had phoned. And so at once, we shook hands, and smiled, and I gave him my gift, and he told me I was a guest in his home, and we sat beside one another on a fabric couch. It was then that Abed resumed at once the tale of woe he had begun over the phone 16 years before. He'd just had surgery on his eyes, he said. He had problems with his side and his legs too, and, oh, he'd lost his teeth in the crash. Did I wish to see him remove them? Abed then rose and turned on the TV so that I wouldn't be alone when he left the room, and returned with Polaroids of the crash and his old driver's license. "I was handsome," he said. We looked down at his laminated mug. Abed had been less handsome than substantial, with thick black hair and a full face and a wide neck. It was this youth who on May 16, 1990, had broken two necks including mine, and bruised one brain and taken one life. Twenty-one years later, he was now thinner than his wife, his skin slack on his face, and looking at Abed looking at his young self, I remembered looking at that photograph of my young self after the crash, and recognized his longing. "The crash changed both of our lives," I said.
Odvezao sam se i vratio u 4:30 zahvaljujući minaretu dalje niz put koji mi je pomogao da pronađem put nazad. Dok sam prilazio ulaznim vratima, Abed me je primetio, moje farmerke, košulju i štap. I ja sam video Abeda, prosečnog čoveka, prosečne visine. Nosio je crno sa belim: papuče preko čarapa ofucanu trenerku, šareni džemper, kapu na pruge navučenu do čela. Očekivao me je. Mohamed je telefonirao. Odmah smo se rukovali i nasmejali jedan drugome i dao sam mu svoj poklon i on mi je rekao da sam gost u njegovoj kući i seli smo jedan do drugog na kauč prekriven tkaninom. Tada je Abed nastavio jadikovanje koje je započeo preko telefona pre 16 godina. Rekao je da je nedavno operisao oči. Imao je problema sa bokovima i nogama takođe i da je izgubio zube u nesreći. Da li bih želeo da ga vidim kako ih vadi? Abed je onda ustao i uključio TV kako ne bih bio sam dok je on otišao iz sobe i vratio se sa fotografijama iz nesreće i svojom vozačkom dozvolom. "Bio sam zgodan", rekao je. Pogledao sam plastificiranu sliku. Abed nije bio toliko zgodan koliko je bio kršan, imao je čvrstu crnu kosu, okruglo lice i širok vrat. Ovaj mladić je 16. maja 1990. slomio dva vrata, uključujući i moj, nagnječio jedan mozak i oduzeo jedan život. Dvadeset i jednu godinu kasnije, on je bio mršaviji od svoje žene, koža na licu mu je visila i gledajući Abeda kako posmatra mladog sebe setio sam se sebe kako gledam svoje fotografije nakon nesreće i prepoznao sam njegovu čežnju. "Sudar je promenio oba naša života", rekao sam.
Abed then showed me a picture of his mashed truck, and said that the crash was the fault of a bus driver in the left lane who did not let him pass. I did not want to recap the crash with Abed. I'd hoped for something simpler: to exchange a Turkish dessert for two words and be on my way. And so I didn't point out that in his own testimony the morning after the crash, Abed did not even mention the bus driver. No, I was quiet. I was quiet because I had not come for truth. I had come for remorse. And so I now went looking for remorse and threw truth under the bus. "I understand," I said, "that the crash was not your fault, but does it make you sad that others suffered?" Abed spoke three quick words. "Yes, I suffered."
Abed mi je onda pokazao sliku svog slupanog kamiona i rekao da je sudar bio krivica vozača autobusa u levoj traci, koji ga nije propustio. Nisam hteo da prolazim kroz sudar s Abedom. Nadao sam se nečemu jednostavnijem: da razmenim turski desert za nekoliko reči i krenem dalje. Zbog toga mu nisam ukazao na to da u sopstvenom svedočenju jutro nakon sudara Abed nije ni spomenuo vozača autobusa. Ćutao sam jer nisam došao zbog istine. Došao sam zbog pokajanja. I zato, tražio sam pokajanje gurajući istinu pod tepih. "Razumem", rekao sam, "da sudar nije bio vaša krivica, ali da li vas rastužuje to što su i drugi patili?" Abed je rekao tri kratke reči. "Da, patio sam."
Abed then told me why he'd suffered. He'd lived an unholy life before the crash, and so God had ordained the crash, but now, he said, he was religious, and God was pleased. It was then that God intervened: news on the TV of a car wreck that hours before had killed three people up north. We looked up at the wreckage. "Strange," I said. "Strange," he agreed. I had the thought that there, on Route 804, there were perpetrators and victims, dyads bound by a crash. Some, as had Abed, would forget the date. Some, as had I, would remember. The report finished and Abed spoke. "It is a pity," he said, "that the police in this country are not tough enough on bad drivers."
Abed mi je onda rekao zašto je patio. Živeo je život grešnika pre sudara i zato je bog prouzrokovao sudar i sada je, rekao je, on bio pobožan i bog je bio zadovoljan. Tada se bog umešao: vesti na TV-u o saobraćajnoj nesreći od pre nekoliko sati na severu, u kojoj je troje ljudi umrlo. Pogledali smo u olupine. "Čudno", rekao sam. "Čudno", on se složio. Pomislio sam da su tamo, na Putu 804, bili počinioci i žrtve, dijade povezane nesrećom. Neki će, kao što je Abed, zaboraviti datum. Neki će ga se sećati, kao ja. Reportaža se završila i Abed je progovorio. "Šteta", rekao je, "što policija u ovoj državi ne kažnjava loše vozače dovoljno."
(Laughter)
Bio sam šokiran.
I was baffled. Abed had said something remarkable. Did it point up the degree to which he'd absolved himself of the crash? Was it evidence of guilt, an assertion that he should have been put away longer? He'd served six months in prison, lost his truck license for a decade. I forgot my discretion. "Um, Abed," I said, "I thought you had a few driving issues before the crash."
Abed je rekao nešto izuzetno. Da li je to bilo dokaz toga koliko je on sebe oslobodio krivice? Da li je to bio dokaz krivice, izjava kako je on trebalo duže da ostane u zatvoru? Odslužio je šest meseci, izgubio kamion i dozvolu na deset godina. Zaboravio sam na diskreciju. "Ovaj, Abede", rekao sam, "mislio sam da ste imali neke probleme s vožnjom pre sudara."
"Well," he said, "I once went 60 in a 40." And so 27 violations -- driving through a red light, driving at excessive speed, driving on the wrong side of a barrier, and finally, riding his brakes down that hill -- reduced to one. And it was then I understood that no matter how stark the reality, the human being fits it into a narrative that is palatable. The goat becomes the hero. The perpetrator becomes the victim. It was then I understood that Abed would never apologize.
"Pa", rekao je, "jednom prilikom sam išao sa 60 umesto 40." Tako se 27 prekršaja - vožnja kroz crveno, prekoračenje brzine, vožnja s pogrešne strane puta i konačno, vožnja bez kočenja niz nizbrdicu - svelo na jedan. Tada sam shvatio da ma koliko stvarnost bila surova, ljudska bića će je pretvoriti u priču koja je podnošljiva. Zločinac postaje heroj. Počinilac postaje žrtva. Tada sam shvatio da se Abed nikada neće izviniti.
Abed and I sat with our coffee. We'd spent 90 minutes together, and he was now known to me. He was not a particularly bad man or a particularly good man. He was a limited man who'd found it within himself to be kind to me. With a nod to Jewish custom, he told me that I should live to be 120 years old. But it was hard for me to relate to one who had so completely washed his hands of his own calamitous doing, to one whose life was so unexamined that he said he thought two people had died in the crash.
Abed i ja smo sedeli uz kafu. Proveli smo 90 minuta zajedno i ja sam ga tada upoznao. Nije bio naročito loš čovek niti naročito dobar čovek. On je bio ograničen čovek, koji je našao snage u sebi da bude ljubazan prema meni. Po jevrejskom običaju poželeo mi je da doživim 120 godina. Ali je meni bilo teško da razumem čoveka koji je u potpunosti oprao ruke od svog kobnog dela, koji do te mere nije preispitao svoj život, da je rekao da je mislio da je dvoje ljudi umrlo u sudaru.
There was much I wished to say to Abed. I wished to tell him that, were he to acknowledge my disability, it would be OK, for people are wrong to marvel at those like me who smile as we limp. People don't know that they have lived through worse, that problems of the heart hit with a force greater than a runaway truck, that problems of the mind are greater still, more injurious than a hundred broken necks. I wished to tell him that what makes most of us who we are most of all is not our minds and not our bodies and not what happens to us, but how we respond to what happens to us. "This," wrote the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, "is the last of the human freedoms: to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances."
Bilo je mnogo toga što sam želeo da kažem Abedu. Želeo sam da mu kažem da bi bilo u redu da primeti moj hendikep, jer ljudi greše kada se dive onima kao ja, koji se osmehuju dok šepaju. Ljudi ne znaju da su preživeli gore, da problemi u našoj duši teže više od udarca kamiona koji je izgubio kontrolu, da su problemi u našim glavama još veći, povrede su strašnije, nego stotine slomljenih vratova. Želeo sam da mu kažem da ono što čini većinu nas, pre svega, nisu naše misli i naša tela i nije ono što nam se desi, već to kako se mi nosimo s onim što nam se desi. "Ovo je", napisao je Viktor Frankl, psihijatar, "jedna od poslednjih ljudskih sloboda: izbor ličnog stava u bilo kojim datim okolnostima."
I wished to tell him that not only paralyzers and paralyzees must evolve, reconcile to reality, but we all must -- the aging and the anxious and the divorced and the balding and the bankrupt and everyone. I wished to tell him that one does not have to say that a bad thing is good, that a crash is from God and so a crash is good, a broken neck is good. One can say that a bad thing sucks, but that this natural world still has many glories. I wished to tell him that, in the end, our mandate is clear. We have to rise above bad fortune. We have to be in the good and enjoy the good -- study and work and adventure and friendship, oh, friendship, and community and love.
Želeo sam da mu kažem da ne moraju samo oni koji su paralizovani i koji su ih paralizovali da evoluiraju, da se pomire sa stvarnošću, nego da svi mi moramo - oni koji stare i oni nervozni i oni razvedeni i oni koji gube kosu i oni koji su bankrotirali i svi. Želeo sam da mu kažem da ne moramo reći da je loša stvar dobra, da je sudar poslat od boga i da je zato sudar dobar, da je slomljeni vrat dobar. Možemo reći da su loše stvari sranje, ali da ovaj svet još uvek ima mnoga čuda. Želeo sam da mu kažem da je na kraju krajeva naša sudbina jasna: moramo se izdići iznad loše sreće. Moramo se prepustiti dobrome i uživati u njemu, učenje i posao i avantura i prijateljstva - o, prijateljstva - i zajednica i ljubav.
But most of all, I wished to tell him what Herman Melville wrote, that truly "to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast." Yes, contrast. If you are mindful of what you do not have, you may be truly mindful of what you do have. And if the gods are kind, you may truly enjoy what you have. That is the one singular gift you may receive if you suffer in any existential way. You know death, and so may wake each morning pulsing with ruddy life. Some part of you is cold, and so another part may truly enjoy what it is to be warm, or even to be cold. When one morning, years after the crash, I stepped onto stone and the underside of my left foot felt the flash of cold, nerves at last awake, it was exhilarating, a gust of snow.
Ali pre svega, želeo sam da mu kažem ono što je Herman Melvil napisao: "Da bismo istinski uživali u toploti tela, mali deo nas mora biti hladan, jer ne postoji ni jedna stvar na ovome svetu koja je ono što jeste bez njene suprotnosti." Da, suprotnosti. Ako ste svesni onoga što nemate, možete zaista biti svesni onoga što imate i ako su bogovi milostivi, možete zaista da uživate u onome što imate. To je jedan jedini dar koji možete da dobijete ako istinski patite. Poznajete smrt i zato se budite svakog jutra sa pulsirajućom željom života. Jedan deo vas je hladan i zato drugi deo vas zaista može da uživa u toploti ili pak u toj hladnoći. Kada sam jednog jutra, godinama nakon sudara, stao na kamen i levim stopalom osetio tračak hladnoće, nerve kako se bude, bilo je neverovatno, nalet snega.
But I didn't say these things to Abed. I told him only that he had killed one man, not two. I told him the name of that man. And then I said, "Goodbye."
Ali nisam ove stvari rekao Abedu. Rekao sam mu da je ubio samo jednog čoveka, ne dvoje. Rekao sam mu ime tog čoveka. A onda sam rekao: "Zbogom."
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
Thanks a lot.
Hvala vam puno.
(Applause and cheers)
(Aplauz)