Lesson 11
How to grow old
如何安度晚年

First listen and then answer the following question.
听录音，然后回答以下问题。

What, according to the author, is the best way to overcome the fear of death as you get older?

Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it -- so at least it seems to me -- is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river -- small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will be not unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do, and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.
BERTRAND RUSSELL How to grow old from Portraits from Memory

New words and expressions 生词和短语

oppress
v. 忧郁，压抑
justification
n. 正当理由
justifiably
adv. 无可非议地
cheat
v. 欺骗
abject
adj. 可怜的
ignoble
adj. 不体面的，可耻的
impersonal
adj. 超脱个人感情影响的
ego
n. 自我
receded
v. 退去
increasing
adv. 日益，不断
passionately
adv. 激昂地
painlessly
adv. 毫无痛苦地
vitality
n. 精力
weariness
n. 疲惫感

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