Transcript

[PRE-ROLL]

[THEME MUSIC STARTS]

Max Linsky: Hey, it’s Max. 

So as I mentioned last week, we’ve actually hit 70 people over 70 on the show. And this is going to be the last episode, at least for a while.

I hope you’ve gotten something out of these conversations. Maybe it was just one line, one small thing that someone said that made sense and will stick with you. Or maybe these talks have changed the way you think about getting older yourself. 

But to help me figure out what I've learned, what I'll take away from this experience, it seemed right to go back to the person who inspired it: my dad, Marty. The last time you heard from him was in the show’s prologue. He was in the hospital then and we were talking about his life, and the end of it, in a way that we never had before. 

[THEME MUSIC FADED OUT]

Max: I think it’s just…I also might just be real scared of you dying.
Marty Linsky: Well, what's the -- what's the fear?
Max:  That it's unknown. The only thing that I have known is having you there, knowing I can talk anything out. I think for me not knowing how much time there is left to do that is-is really scary; and then what's on the other side feels kind of impossible.
Marty: I have so much confidence in your capacity for managing that after I’m gone, that I don't–I don’t worry about it at all. You'll find ways to continue to keep our conversation going long after I've stopped breathing. Maybe that's what you're doing with the show -- is trying to figure out what-what it means to... um, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t–

Max: What were you going to say?

Marty: Well, I was saying what it means to let go.

Max: He got out of the hospital shortly after that. And since then–over the months I've been making this show–he and I kinda keep circling back to some version of that conversation. What does it feel like to be at this place in his life? Sometimes he laughs it off.

Marty: So I was walking–I was walking to the men's room and this guy came up to me, older, older guy, the older guy [both laugh]. And he said to me, he said, “If you need a wheelchair after the game, we can provide them.” I almost wanted to go tell him to go fuck himself. I was so pissed, I couldn't believe it how angry I was. I want to punch him in the stomach. [both laugh]
Max: What’d you actually say?
Marty:  I said no, I’m doing fine. Thank you very much. [laughs

Max: Other times he seems to be struggling with it a little more. 

Marty: I began to think about how there's no training manual, there is no mentoring. No one ever prepared me for getting old. 

[MUSIC STARTS]

Max: And the whole time, he’s been listening to the show. He texts me after every episode, not just to tell me what he thinks of the interviews, but to ask what I've learned from them. So after we finished the last episode, I drove up to his house to talk it through with him. 

INTERVIEW

Max: Hi, dad.

Marty: Hey, Max. I wish we had a bottle of champagne here [Max laughs] to celebrate this moment, you know.

[MUSIC FADES OUT]

Marty: Whatever the future holds for you, for me, for 70 Over 70, this is a great moment. Uh, how are you feeling?

Max: Um. Oh, I have many–I have many feelings all at once and they're like collapsing in on each other.

Marty: So lay’em out.

Max: Let's see. This has been long and, uh, has taken a kind of energy that I didn't totally anticipate it would take. But there's a part of me that is really, uh, grieving the end of it and the process of working on it. 

Marty: Mm hmm. Wh-what do you mean by that? 

Max: Well, you know, there's this wonderful group of people that I've been able to work with on the show in a way that's really different than I've been able to work with them before. You know, figuring out how to make this thing together.

Marty: You know, I can't help but think that there's something–what makes it different is also the content. You know, there's an intimacy about the content that is different than, you know, a podcast about sports or podcasts about news, or, you know, there's something different about it. Well, but how do you–what did it feel like for you to be week after week immersed in these conversations with people you didn't know, some of whom were, you know, well-known to you in advance and some of whom were more obscure? How did it feel?

Max: Um.

Marty: Like, you're looking in their closet or something! 

Max: [laughs] Yeah. Mostly it felt thrilling. You know, the mics feel like a prop almost, you know. Like it um… it feels a little bit like a–like a scam to get to talk to these people in this way– 

Marty: Even with the people who didn't want to play very much. 

Max: Yeah, but the people who showed up ready–you know, there's no universe in which Judith Light would have had coffee with me and let me ask her about this transformative moment in her own life where she decided to be a different person in the world, you know. I just wouldn't get to do that without the show and that's a wonderful way to spend a Tuesday afternoon, you know. So in that way, it has felt wonderful and-and I feel, like, lucky. 

Marty: Do you think it's going to have any spillover in your non-70 Over 70 life? 

Max: Well, you know, you mentioned earlier, like not everyone was totally willing to play in that way. And I think those conversations taught me as much as the ones where people did. 

Marty: What do you mean? What do they teach you?

Max: Well, there's this thing that the last-the last person I talked to, Diane Meier, said to me about having hard conversations with people facing terminal illness. Which is basically that, you can't have a conversation with someone that they don't want to have and what she meant by that was if you try and force it in the first moment, not only are they not going to have that conversation with you, but they're never going to trust you again. And there's a part of that is-that is tactical and specific to her work that she wouldn't be able to do her job going forward. But there's also part of it that really hit me hard because it connected with the show, which is that, you know, I think the ones where we weren't able to get to that place that felt like I was rooting around in their closet–or that we were doing that together, you know–I don't think it was just that they didn't show up ready to do that. Part of it was about where I was that day or in the show or in my life, like there was a..sometimes a narrow band that I was going to be able to have a conversation within, particularly when people, you know, we were scheduled for an hour, you know. Like part of-part of what Diane Myers work is about and part of what that answer was about is you can't force the conversation because you've got to show up the next day and keep moving the whole project forward. So you gotta play it smart. Can't try and have the whole thing on the first day if they're not ready to have it. 

And one of the–this is sort of the other side of the coin of the thing I was talking about earlier about the podcast feeling like a scam, right? There's a limitation in saying we're going to try and have that kind of conversation, but all we have is an hour and we're going to do it over Zoom. You know, like it's not the same as walking it to someone's home. Asking them about things that are on the wall, you now. [Yeah.] And having people understand how much I want it to be there with them, you know. How much I wanted to hear what they had to say. And I found that hard to convey sometimes, and that doesn't mean that it was impossible to do so, but man when I did it was great. 

Marty: My question is, what did you learn then about your own preparation? You know, and I'm thinking about it, not just preparing for the next 70 Over 70 conversation, but I'm thinking preparing for hard conversations generally,you know.  What did you learn about that? 

Max: Well, I think it's connected to a pretty fundamental thing that I learned overall from the show, which is that you can't do any of this all at once. There's this line that Andre De Shields said at the Tonys that he and I talked about a lot in like the second episode of the thing, which is ‘slowly is the fastest way to get where you want to be’. And I think that that's part of this, too. Which is that. Getting to that place that incredibly personal, honest, open place, whether it's in interviews for the show or with people in my life, people that I care about, it's not binary. It's something I'm going to be working on as long as I'm around.

Marty: [laughs] Mom and I have this long standing joke about two times, once in a restaurant, once a subway, I try to have a conversation with her about our sex life [Max laughs. And you know, we kid about it a lot, but, uh, it's-it connects with what you're saying in that… I don't want to be a cliche, but 

Max: Oh, I thought, you can say you don't want to talk more about your mom’s sex life, which is good by me [both laugh]. As soon as you want to [laughs] as soon as you want to pivot away from that. That's great.

Marty: But it takes two to tango. And you have in theory, you have some control over your own state of readiness, and intimate conversation is not something you just put on the schedule when you have a free hour, you know. 

Max: Yes!

Marty: And when you think about athletes, when you think about actors, the-the relationship between the time and practice in the time doing, you know, is crazy. And it feels to me that's part of what we're talking about here is that-is that this takes work. It takes work to have a hard conversation and it's–you can't just pull it out of your back pocket. It's a question of context, timing. It's a question of your preparation and readiness. And that's not just intellectual, a list of questions. It's an emotional thing, and it's also the other person, and it's being able to read the other person so that you can be where they are. 

Max: Yes, one of the things that happens in a couple of these conversations and also happens in conversations in my life all the time is that I've got such a clear idea of where I want to go. 

Marty: Yes. 

Max: That if people don't want to go there, I don't have I don't have any other plans. And in that moment of not knowing where else to go when where I thought we'd go isn't going to work, that's about a kind of preparation that feels new to me in my life in many, many ways. And the thing you have to do in that moment is let go of whatever assumption you had and just fucking listen. 

Marty: Yes!

Max: Just listen, listen, listen. And I wasn't always able to do that because I'd been doing 15 things right before or, uh, whatever it was.

Marty: And you also–the idea in your head you think is a good idea. 

Max: Great idea! It's my idea. It's perfect!

Marty: But, I know from four decades of teaching that the secret is to empty your head. The less I have in my head, the more successful I am. How can you possibly listen to somebody, the kind of listening deep listening that you're talking about, If you've got lots of stuff going on in your head that you're listening to.

Max: Right. 

Marty: Right? The idea that you are most effective when you are empty headed, which is different than winging it, it's not about winging it. 

Max: Oh, completely.

Marty: It's a challenging idea, which leads me to another insight that I've learned from listening to the episodes, which is that not knowing is a resource.

Max: Yeah, I think I feel more connected to that idea of not knowing being a gift than I did before. But, for me, that does connect to this idea that's also in the prolog, that first thing that we did together about, like, figuring it all out. You know, uh, I think that I think there'll always be some part of me that would really like to be able to flip a switch and have it all figured out. You know, I don't think that will ever really go away completely, but the urge to look for that feels lower right now to me than it has ever felt. 

Marty: I was just–I had lunch today with a guy who is a wonderful old dear friend of mine, who is a self-professed conservative, political conservative. Very smart, wonderful, wonderful guy. And I was walking back across the park from having lunch with him, and I was thinking myself, ‘Am I a conservative or liberal or moderate or what?’ And then I realize I'm-I’m fucking 81 years old. I don't know, yet. [Max laughs] And then I got really excited about that.

Max: Well, right! And that does feel to me like a thing that feels different and is a product of these conversations. For most of my life, the not knowing has been fucking terrifying. And I really just wanted to know. 

Marty: Well, that passion–that desire is reinforced everywhere, you know. 

Max: All the time!

Marty: You know, you get good grades for knowing. You get promoted for doing and you get promoted for knowing, even pretending you know, even when you don't know.

Max: Right. And-and I've had a lot of pretty embarrassing moments on the show related to not knowing or not hearing, you know. I mean, Nikki Giovanni and Helen Prejean and a fair number of people have basically just said like, “Oh, you-you're not. You're not hearing it”. And there's a vulnerability…there’s something about that that is both uncomfortable. Putting that out in the world, you know, there's just some baseline fear, right? But, it’s also freeing because like, you know, what happens after you put out a podcast episode where Nikki Giovanni tells you, you haven't figured anything out yet? Nothing. Totally fine. And again, this will change, it will come, it will go. It'll be lifelong work. There will be better days with it and worse days with it. But, a thing that feels different, having had these conversations, is I'm…

[MUSIC FADES IN]

Max: I'm a lot less worried about how little I know. 

[MUSIC FADES OUT

[[MIDROLL]]

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Marty: So think about the people who have been listening, you know? 

[MUSIC FADES OUT]

Marty: What are your aspirations, hopes for them? What would make you feel good about what they took away? 

Max: I think there's a couple of things and-and one of them is trying to have these conversations, how to have them better, how to be more ready yourself. I do think that talking it out is important. And I mean, what's the-what's the cliche thing that people say when someone dies unexpectedly? They say, ‘tell the people that you love that you love them’, you know. And I think there's lots of ways to do that. But I think these kinds of conversations are a version of that, you know? And so one thing I hope is that people have more of them. That there's some moment in any of this that connected to someone in their lives and it prompted them to give that person a call or send them a text or find a way to go for a walk or whatever you know, and tell them whatever version of, uh, ‘I Love You’ is. 

Sounds so corny now that I'm saying it out loud, but I hope we can live in that place more than we do. And I so, like, I so desperately want that for myself to live in that place more, you know. Like, I feel clearer about that and accepting of the work it will take to continue to do that. You know? 

Marty: We've also talked about how–this is the connection that I have made until now–how your being ready, really ready, in somebody you care about not being ready, that's OK. 

Max: Yeah. Part of the readiness is having the people in your life know I’m there if you want to.

Marty: So that's really interesting, I mean, there's so many things that you said that trigger things in my mind. Has affected the way you think about dying? 

Max: A lot. I think the most surprising thing on the show, the thing that was furthest from what my assumption would have been, was the way in which almost everyone answered that question “Are you scared of dying?” I asked almost everybody that. And almost everyone met that question, not just with a no but with some with some joy. You know, I mean, Norman Lear had that incredible line about like, why would I be scared of dying? Like, no one's ever given me a bad report about it, you know? [Marty laughs] There was there was so much of that and that did feel to me like there is a different place to get to around, think about your own mortality and the end of your life. 

Marty: Did it make you feel or think any differently about my dying?

Max: You said this thing when we talked that was in that prolog, when we talked in the hospital about feeling like the conversation that you and I have been having will continue in some way. And I feel more connected to that idea than I did. You know, I think that's in part about this letting go of the idea that these things are binary, you know. That it's all or nothing. I think there's lots of forms of what that conversation looks like. I don't know what any of them are, really. Um, but I'm pretty open to the idea that they exist. But also the idea of you dying feels more real and is sadder to me. You know? 

Marty: Well this, one of this things I–

Max: It’s less scary and much sadder. 

Marty: Yeah. I listened to Dianne Myer last night and I was thinking that her idea of the idea that if you can get people to embrace finitness, which to me as I've been thinking about it it's not just an idea about death, but it’s about an idea about change and in and transitions. And the idea that everything has a beginning, a middle and end, you know, and that that is part of nature. You know, if you accept– I mean, I'm just working on this myself–but if you really internalize that idea of finiteness, it allows you to be more present and savor the moment knowing that it's going to end then if you think that you can keep the good times rolling forever.

Max: Yes. Yes, and-and I think that's the distinction between being scared of you dying and being sad about you dying. 

Marty: I surely want you to be sad [laugha]. 

Max: Well, of course I was going to be sad, but the thing we were talking about in the hospital was that I was scared of it. And if you spend your time being scared of a thing that's out of your control and that you have no idea what's on the other side of, you can't be as present. You can't savor that finite time in a meaningful way. 

Marty: Well, and-and it's so ridiculous to be afraid of dying, because no one, as Norman Lear said, no one [both laugh] no one could tell us what it's like. 

Max: Yeah!

Marty: It may be fabulous, it may be horrible and it may be nothing at all, but no one could tell us, you know? And so anybody who has an idea about what it is, that idea–having that idea is getting in the way of today and of this conversation and of loving the people you love.

Max: Right. And it doesn't just have to be dying. That realization that any idea you have about it, is just an idea getting in the way. That's also true of parenting. It's true of friendships. It's true of. work and collaborative work. That concept extends, and, you know, I think it even extends to these interviews. Like, if I go into it with an idea of what the platonic ideal of the conversation will have is and then that's not available, it's just getting in the way of whatever conversation is available..

Marty: That's right. 

Max: And I don't have an answer about this, but I can tell you like a thing that I've been thinking about a lot is choices. And I think that came up a lot in the show, you know. 

Marty: Say more about that. 

Max: That your capacity to be ready is not infinite. And that you have to be deliberate about where you are going to spend your readiness. And it connects in a  little bit of a way to like um…did you see that one with Russell Banks, the writer?

Marty: Sure, I loved it. 

Max: And he was talking about this kind of place that he had gotten with his writing where he was living the most solitary life he had ever led in this writing shack he walks out to in the morning and that by stripping away all of the other demands on his life, other commitments that he had, the other responsibilities that he had taken on that something had happened with his writing, where now he described it as it's it's as natural as ‘growing my hair.’ You know?

 I don't think I'm ever going to get like to a place where the thing that I want to be doing is like living in the woods and going to a shack and spending time by myself every day, that feels like not particularly appealing to me. But part of what I hear in that story is about making choices, saying no, letting go of other possibilities and other things you might want to do in order to make the space for the thing that you most want to do. And I think that came up again and again in these conversations in so many different ways, and I also think it's where people have regrets, you know. 

Marty: Say more about that. 

Max: I think most of the regrets that people had were when they chose to prioritize something for themselves that was short term or ephemeral over a person or a relationship in their lives. And then people who you would expect to have regrets something thinking about, like Joycelyn Elders, who was Surgeon General in the United States and was forced to resign after 18 months, I think because the way that she wanted to do that job was not politically tenable. And, you know, talk about going into it with ideas, like, I was sure going into that conversation that there was some part of her that was like, I kind of wish I played a different way. Stay in that job longer, have a different next 20 years of my professional life, you know. Not one iota of that from her. None. Because that choice was deliberate and she was completely comfortable with the consequences of that choice. And I don't–that feels-that feels new to me. Uh, thinking about choice in that way. So II think that I have thought about as he can just like keep stacking on pancakes, you know, like eat them all. And, uh, and you can't. 

And I think I'm on like, uh, the very first step of that idea. But I do think that these conversations help to help get me there because that–those are the things that people have regret about.

Marty: And I guess one of the underlying assumptions of the-of 70 Over 70 is that if you don't have these conversations with people that you love and who love you, there is a price to pay. There's a loss. And even though it's hard and it's scary and it feels risky.  Not having, uh, not having those conversations will…you-you'll be giving up something as a result, it turns out to be very important. 

Max: Yeah. Yeah. And in a way, I mean, I think that connects to where we started this thing, which is about letting go. 

Marty: Yeah.

Max: And part of that is about letting go of regret in the way you're describing. But it's also about letting go of the ideas of what your life will be or what life is or dying. 

Marty: And-and what-what would somebody once frame this as anticipatory dread.

Max: Yeah. 

Marty: We used the word in our family of pre-fretting [Max laughs] as a way of holding on. And you know, this distinction that you made about my dying, about not being any less sad, but being a lot less afraid. That seems like a hugely important idea. 

Max: And I think that's the other thing that I would want people to take away from the show because I-I think, like, no, this shit is ever done. But I do feel less afraid, less worried than I did before I had these conversations. And-and I think that came from the people that I talked to, you know?

Almost all of whom are less worried and afraid than they were at some other point in their life. And are able to see that, you know, and appreciate it and find joy in it. 

[MUSIC FADES IN]

Marty: I don't-I don't want you to fail to celebrate what you've–the opportunity that you've created for yourself and for me and for lots and lots of other people over the course of the last year. 

Max: Well, thanks for all your help on this. 

Marty: Thanks for doing it. 

Max (Narration): So, it turns out this whole project was about something I knew when we started, but couldn't quite articulate then. The way to make the most out of the time we have left is to stay present. On some level, all of us know that, and yet we all still need to be reminded of it basically every moment of every day: stay present. As much as you can, just stay present. 

Norman Lear talked about it as a hammock. Sister Helen Prejean described it as a river. Maira kalman, in the way that only she can, called it a sandwich. They’re all metaphors for the same thing. And I’m not sure I've got my metaphor yet, but I know what they’re talking about. It's doing what you can to let go of whatever idea you might have of what you want to hear or how you want things to go, and just try to listen.

And that takes patience. With other people and with yourself. Because you can’t do it all the time. But you can always try to do it more. 

And you can start right now.

Thanks to Marty Linsky, and to everyone else who shared their time and wisdom with us.

[MUSIC FADES OUT]

CREDITS

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Max: 70 Over 70 is a production of Pineapple Street Studios, and it’s produced by Jess Hackel. Here's Jess’ grandmom, Sandy Levin, who’s 83 years old. 

Sandy Levin:My biggest piece of advice for someone who just turned 70 is when choosing what you want to do, make sure that you have a goal, but you have to stretch it a little more. Something that you're not sure that you can maybe attain, but you sure might want to try.  

Max: Our associate producer is Janelle Anderson. Here's Janelle's grandma, Bertha Riley, who’s 75 years old.

Bertha Riley: Number one, we have to thank God for reaching that age and continue to live.

Max: Our editors are Maddy Sprung-Keyser and Joel Lovell. Here’s Austin Sarat, Maddy’s college professor, mentor, and friend, who’s 74 years old. 

Austin Sarat: Get ready for and get used to the appearance of the word 'still' in questions associated with them and their lives. Are you still teaching? Are you still feeding yourself? Are you still toileting alone? 

Max: Research and additional reporting by Charley Locke. Here’s Charley’s uncle, Tom, who’s 70 years old.

Tom: Look at this birthday as not just a milestone, but also kind of a deadline. Take a look at what the balance is in your life of work and other kinds of things, and then take action. 

Max: Our mixer is Elliott Adler, and this is his family friend, Carol. She’s  70 

Carol: Enjoy life while you can and be kind to others because life goes by really, really, really fast. And so if you think you're going to do it when you're older and you're going to wait on, it doesn't work that way. 

Max: Jenna Weiss-Berman and I are the executive producers. Here’s Jenna’s dad, Steven Berman, who’s 72.

Steve Berman: When people turn 70, they all should be forced to read this prayer composed by a 17th century nun. "Lord, keep me from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion. Release me from craving to straighten out everybody's affairs. Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places and talent in unexpected people. And give me oh, lord, the grace to tell them so. Amen." 

Max: Our theme song is Like A Dream by Francis and the Lights. Original music by Terence Bernardo, Additional music by Noble Kids, and music licensing by Dan Knishkowy.

Our cover art is by Maira Kalman who is 72, and our episode art is by Lynn Staley. She's 74, and she’s also my mom. And here she is.

Lynn Staley: I never expected to turn 70, and there's not really anything you can do to prepare. Best to think of it as a triumph. 

Max: I'm Max Linsky. Thanks for listening.