Read Online Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself by Alan Alda - Free Book Online Page A

had been plenty wrong with the world, of course, and there probably always would be. The hope for my daughter was that she would be strong enough to survive in it.

    If there’s one urgent thought I want to leave in your ear in this parting hug—it’s that I want you to be strong. I don’t mean hard and brittle. The tree that won’t bend with the storm will snap in two. I hope you’ll flex and give and then stand straight again with your roots where they ought to be.
    And being strong doesn’t mean having all the answers. Even when you’re in charge of something, don’t be afraid not to know exactly what you’re doing. Ask questions. Some people may look at you funny, worried at your hesitation. They’re only showing their own frailty. I’ve known some strong people, and they weren’t afraid to hold their uncertain ground while they searched for a solution.
    It takes courage to be creative. And we’re going to need your creativity or we’re done for. And I hope you’ll give other people a chance to be uncertainly creative, too. Someone else may be able to contribute one idea that will solve one of the insurmountable problems we’re handing you, even though that person may be totally wrong about everything else.
    Steer clear of ideology. Like jargon, it can be a substitute for thought. The lure of the simple solution can lead to handing over your life to people who make the trains run on time—but who take away your freedom to go where you want on those trains.
    Be open to change, and take risks—that’s the adventure and the art of life. Find the bridge between constancy and experiment. Be flexible, but principled. Be a dissenter, but patriotic. Be disciplined, but improvise.
    Freud said, “Health is the ability to work and to love.” Add a third: Be able to play. Be playful about the most serious things in your life; you’ll enjoy them more and have them longer. Playfulness is a sudden shift of vision—a kind of affectionate dissent. It brings you closer to what you love.
    Be flexible about your dreams. Say hello to change. I had an economics teacher in college, Mr. Partlan, who said, “Don’t be afraid to change your mind about your career. You can keep changing till you’re forty.” I know people who are changing in their sixties. Be supple. Be loose. Life is one surprise after another.
    College has been like climbing a mountain. You had to persevere, stretch your reach, endure the loneliness of the midnight book. And now you’re at the summit—and what do you see in front of you? More mountains. The only thing you can be sure of is that there will always be more mountains.
    But I know you’ll be okay. Your laughter, your honesty, your youthful energy and optimism—that makes me know that life is possible.
    Because you can wrap your brain around a tough idea, because you can learn an art—tell a joke, play the piano—because you can laugh with a lusty abandon: Because of simple things like these, I know that nature will survive.
    I wish I had a better world to give you. But maybe we can work on one together now.
    So long, my child. Hello, my friend.

    Elizabeth graduated, and we took off on a trip together. Arlene had come up with an antidote for the time I had been away from our daughters while I worked in California. As soon as she graduated, each daughter could choose a trip anywhere in the world, and she and I would go there together. Eve chose Greece, Beatrice chose China, and Elizabeth decided on a trip on the
Orient Express
from Paris to Venice, then Salzburg and Vienna.
    It didn’t start out as the trip of our dreams—or, at least, not mine. We waited at the train station in Paris, with our bags splayed out on the floor, listening for the announcement to board the train. Nothing came over the speakers. We waited an hour and still nothing. Finally, with a half hour to go, I left Elizabeth to watch the bags while I went to see the stationmaster.
    “
Non,
” he said, “
le train