Wisdom from great writers on every year of life | Joshua Prager

Prevoditelj: Tilen Pigac - EFZG Recezent: Ivan Stamenković

I'm turning 44 next month,

Slijedeći mjesec napunit ću 44 godine,

and I have the sense that 44 is going to be a very good year,

i imam osjećaj da će 44 biti jako dobra godina,

a year of fulfillment, realization.

godina ostvarenja, realizacija.

I have that sense,

Osjećam to,

not because of anything particular in store for me,

ne zbog nečega posebnog što mi predstoji,

but because I read it would be a good year

već jer sam pročitao da će ovo biti dobra godina

in a 1968 book by Norman Mailer.

u knjizi Normana Mailera iz 1968.

"He felt his own age, forty-four ..."

"Svoju vlastitu dob, četrdeset i četiri godine ..."

wrote Mailer in "The Armies of the Night,"

piše Mailer u romanu "Vojske noći,"

"... felt as if he were a solid embodiment

"... osjećao je kao utjelovljenje

of bone, muscle, heart, mind, and sentiment to be a man,

od kosti, mišića, srca i uma, i težnji da bude muškarac,

as if he had arrived."

kao da je stigao."

Yes, I know Mailer wasn't writing about me.

Da, znam da Mailer nije pisao o meni.

But I also know that he was;

Ali isto tako znam da je;

for all of us -- you, me, the subject of his book,

za sve nas -- tebe, mene, subjekt njegove knjige,

age more or less in step,

starenje više manje postepeno,

proceed from birth along the same great sequence:

nastaviti koračati od rođenja, duž istaknutog slijeda,

through the wonders and confinements of childhood;

kroz čuda i ograničenja djetinjstva;

the emancipations and frustrations of adolescence;

odvojenosti i frustracija adolescencije;

the empowerments and millstones of adulthood;

moćnih i velikih trenutaka zrele dobi;

the recognitions and resignations of old age.

priznanja, ali i rezignacija odrasle dobi.

There are patterns to life,

Postoje šablone u životu,

and they are shared.

i svi ih dijelimo.

As Thomas Mann wrote: "It will happen to me as to them."

Thomas Mann je napisao: "Dogodit će se meni kao i njima."

We don't simply live these patterns.

Ne samo da živimo po obrascima.

Mi ih i bilježimo.

We record them, too.

We write them down in books, where they become narratives

Mi ih zapisujemo u knjige, gdje postaju pripovijetke

that we can then read and recognize.

koje zatim možemo čitati i prepoznavati.

Books tell us who we've been,

Knjige nam također otkrivaju što smo bili,

who we are, who we will be, too.

tko smo, i što ćemo postati.

So they have for millennia.

To rade već tisućljećima.

Kako je James Salter napisao,

As James Salter wrote,

"Life passes into pages if it passes into anything."

"Ako postoji jedna stvar u koju se život prenosi -- to su stranice."

And so six years ago, a thought leapt to mind:

I tako je prije 6 godina, misao prošla kroz moju glavu:

if life passed into pages, there were, somewhere,

ako se životna mudrost uistinu izljeva u stranice, onda negdje, moraju postojati

passages written about every age.

odlomci o svakoj mogućoj životnoj dobi.

If I could find them, I could assemble them into a narrative.

Njihovim pronalaskom, mogao bih sklopiti cijelinu.

I could assemble them into a life,

Cijelinu koja zatim postaje život,

a long life, a hundred-year life,

stotinu godina dug život,

potpunost tog veličanstvenog slijeda

the entirety of that same great sequence

through which the luckiest among us pass.

koji samo najsretniji među nama dovrše u cijelosti.

I was then 37 years old,

Tada mi je bilo 37 godina,

"an age of discretion," wrote William Trevor.

"razdoblje diskretnosti," piše William Trevor.

Bio sam sklon meditaciji o vremenu i dobi.

I was prone to meditating on time and age.

An illness in the family and later an injury to me

Bolest u obitelji, a kasnije i ozljeda koja me zadesila

had long made clear that growing old could not be assumed.

jasno su mi pokazale da ne možemo pretpostaviti kada ćemo ostariti.

Uostalom, starenje samo odgađa neizbježno,

And besides, growing old only postponed the inevitable,

time seeing through what circumstance did not.

dok vrijeme vidi kroz ono što okolnosti ne mogu.

It was all a bit disheartening.

Sve to bilo je pomalo obeshrabrujuće.

A list, though, would last.

Popis stvari bi doduše potrajao.

To chronicle a life year by vulnerable year

Zabilježiti svaku ranjivu godinu života

would be to clasp and to ground what was fleeting,

značilo bi očuvati ono nestalno,

would be to provide myself and others a glimpse into the future,

pružajući sebi, ali i drugima pogled u budućnost,

čak i ako smo već do tamo stigli.

whether we made it there or not.

And when I then began to compile my list, I was quickly obsessed,

I kad sam tada počeo sastavljati, svoju listu -- ubrzo sam opsesivno

searching pages and pages for ages and ages.

pretraživao stranicu za stranicom, godinu za godinom.

Here we were at every annual step through our first hundred years.

Prošao sam svim godišnjim stepenicama, duž svojih prvih sto godina.

"Twenty-seven ... a time of sudden revelations,"

"Dvadesetsedam ... razdoblje iznenadnih otkrivenja,"

"šezdeset i dvije ... razdoblje suptilnog propadanja."

"sixty-two, ... of subtle diminishments."

I was mindful, of course, that such insights were relative.

Naravno da sam bio svjestan, relativnosti takvih shvaćanja.

For starters, we now live longer, and so age more slowly.

Za početnike, sad živimo duže, i starimo sporije.

Christopher Isherwood je upotrijebio izraz "žuti list"

Christopher Isherwood used the phrase "the yellow leaf"

to describe a man at 53,

kako bi opisao 53-godišnjaka,

only one century after Lord Byron used it to describe himself at 36.

samo sto godina nakon što je Lord Byron, tim istim izrazom opisao sebe sa 36.

(Laughter)

(Smijeh)

Bio sam i svjestan činjenice, da je život neobuzdan i nepredvidljiv,

I was mindful, too, that life can swing wildly and unpredictably

from one year to the next,

iz godine u godinu,

and that people may experience the same age differently.

i da ljudi istu dob mogu proživljavati različito.

Čak i da je tako,dok se lista sjedinjavala

But even so, as the list coalesced,

so, too, on the page, clear as the reflection in the mirror,

istovremeno se na stranici, jasno kao odraz u zrcalu,

sjedinjavao i moj život:

did the life that I had been living:

finding at 20 that "... one is less and less sure of who one is;"

saznavajući da s 20 "osoba postaje sve nesigurnija svojeg pravog identiteta;"

da bi sa 30 iskrsnula iz "pustoši pripreme za aktivni život;"

emerging at 30 from the "... wasteland of preparation into active life;"

naučivši sa 40 "... kako nježno zatvoriti vrata prema sobama

learning at 40 "... to close softly the doors to rooms

[I would] not be coming back to."

kojima se [Ja] neću vraćati."

There I was.

Bio sam tamo.

Of course, there we all are.

Naravno, svi smo mi bili tamo.

Milton Glaser, the great graphic designer

Milton Glaser, sjajni grafički dizajner

whose beautiful visualizations you see here,

čije prekrasne vizualizacije vidite ovdje,

and who today is 85 --

i kojemu je danas 85 --

all those years "... a ripening and an apotheosis," wrote Nabokov --

sve ove godine "... zrenje i apoteoza," piše Nabokov --

noted to me that, like art and like color,

napominjale su mi da, kao umjetnost i boja,

literature helps us to remember what we've experienced.

književnost nam pomaže da se sjetimo onoga što smo iskusili.

I doista, kad sam podijelio popis sa svojim djedom,

And indeed, when I shared the list with my grandfather,

he nodded in recognition.

on je kimnuo u znak potvde.

He was then 95 and soon to die,

Tada mu je bilo 95 i bio je na samrti,

which, wrote Roberto Bolaño,

koja je, piše Roberto Bolaño,

"... is the same as never dying."

"... isto kao nikada ne umrijeti."

And looking back, he said to me that, yes,

Gledajući unatrag, rekao mi je da,

Proust was right that at 22, we are sure we will not die,

Proust jest bio u pravu -- sa 22 godine sigurni smo da nećemo umrijeti,

just as a thanatologist named Edwin Shneidman was right

kao što je Tanatolog Edwin Shneidmann --

that at 90, we are sure we will.

bio u pravu da smo sa 90 uvjereni u suprotno.

It had happened to him,

Dogodilo se njemu,

as to them.

kao i ostalima.

Now the list is done:

Sada je popis dovršen:

stotinu godina.

a hundred years.

And looking back over it,

I gledajući nazad prema njemu,

I know that I am not done.

znam da nisam gotov.

I still have my life to live,

Još uvijek trebam proživjeti svoj život,

still have many more pages to pass into.

i još stranica u koje ću se uobličiti.

And mindful of Mailer,

I svjestan Mailera,

I await 44.

iščekujem četrdeset četvrtu.

Thank you.

Hvala vam.

(Applause)

(Pljesak)