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Alan Alda interview - Tavis Smiley Show

Alan Alda is recognized internationally as an actor, writer and director. He's won six Emmys and six Golden Globes and has the distinction of being nominated for an Oscar, a Tony and an Emmy and publishing a best-selling book all in the same year. The son of distinguished actor Robert Alda, the New York City native began acting at age 16.

Tavis Smiley: First of all, the title of your new book, "Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself." I love that title.

Alan Alda: Well, in the middle of the night, I heard this voice because I was in the midst of being so glad to be alive. I heard this voice from the back of my head that said, "So have you lived a life of meaning?"

The reason I asked myself that, I think, is because I had been looking through all the things I had said, thinking about the things I'd said, the kind of advice I'd given to my children and my grandchildren to graduate in classes and commencement talks. I'm urging them to live a life of meaning and to think about their values and are they living by their values and that kind of thing.

So now I hear this voice, "Are you living a life of meaning?" I said, "Come on, please. What? Are you kidding? (laughter) I got this wonderful life." Then the voice said, "No, really. If you don't wake up tomorrow, will this have been a life of meaning?"

I guess I was sort of challenged by the very things I was reading. So I went back and really listened again to them because what I mean by that title is, when we give advice, we're really talking to ourselves, you know.

It's like a moment of hope. You hope that the young person will become what you're urging them to be and you hope that you're already what you're urging them to be, and not necessarily so (laughter). So I was listening to what I had told myself.

Tavis: So now let me go back to what I referenced a moment ago. When you were last on the show at the first book that did so well - I just call it the dog book. It's shorter to say.

Alda: "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed."

Tavis: Exactly. So that book did remarkably well and that book closes with a story about you being on your death bed basically. You almost died in Chile?

Alda: Yeah, in Chile, within a couple of hours of dying. Well, what happened was, I was up on top of a mountain. We were doing our science program, "Scientific American Frontiers." I was interviewing astronomers, you know, eight thousand feet up and I got this incredible pain in my gut and I didn't know what it was. It got worse and worse and worse until I was really out of it. I was just screaming in pain.

They took me down the mountain in an old ambulance that looked like one of the "Mash" ambulances and it worked like one of them too (laughter). They couldn't get it started. I'm lying in the back screaming and they're going, "Well, I don't know. What do you think it is?"

So they get me down there in this incredibly - I was so glad that this guy, Dr. Zapata, was there who was an expert in intestinal surgery and he saved my life. He knew what the problem was and he took out about a yard of my intestine and I lived (laughter).

So I couldn't have been happier to be alive. I woke up euphoric and looking to see if I could get the most juice out of this new life I was handed. Most people who go through this, like Governor Corzine now in New Jersey, you know, he tells everybody that his life's a little different now.

As happy as I was to be alive before that and didn't think I could be happier, I'm way happier because I know that this conversation we're having now wasn't scheduled, you know. This wouldn't have happened. So I'm much more tuned in. The colors are more vivid, what people say is more interesting. I really am loving it.

Tavis: When I think of this book when I started to go through it in anticipation, of course, of our wonderful conversation, there are two quotes that kind of popped in my head that I wanted to get your thought about relative to your work. The first comes from Socrates, of course, who says, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

I'm blanking on the author of the second quote now, but the point essentially is that "it takes more courage to examine your own soul than it does for a soldier to take to the battlefield."

Alda: Well, I'll go along with that because I ain't going to go to the battlefield (laughter).

Tavis: (Laughter) Hey, you were on "Mash." You were already on the battlefield.

Alda: That's as close as I'm going to get (laughter).

Tavis: You were on the battlefield for like fifteen seasons or whatever it was. That said, when you attempt to be Socratic, to examine your own life, which again takes courage to do that, what do you find?

Alda: Well, I thought it was really interesting. I've been lucky enough to live through most of the things that we all think will give meaning to our lives, trying to be an artist, being a father, a husband, being devoted to love and even trying to do good with other people. I had celebrity which a lot of people think will solve all their problems, but it doesn't, and even money.

But what's funny is, none of that, or at least not any one of them, gives me a personal sense of lasting satisfaction that I would define as meaning. Because you say meaning enough, it starts to lose its meaning. I want to have meaning in my life between now and the time it's over. I'm not thinking about getting meaning later on after I'm dead (laughter). I want to know now.

Tavis: You want it now.

Alda: I want it now, yeah. And I'm greedy. I want as much of tasting of this life as I can. It's funny. I got into this thing where it's something that another guy said a long time ago, Marcus Aurelius, the emperor who was also a great writer who said, "All we have is now."

That registered with me along with what brain scientists have told me on the science show where they said our experience of now in the brain lasts about five seconds. Of course, it keeps moving, you know. But except for those five seconds, anything that happened just prior to that is already a memory.

So when we were joking a couple of minutes ago, we're not in that now anymore. That's a memory. Or thinking about the future is also outside of now. So staying in those five seconds has become for me a kind of a game to see if I can do it, to see if I actually can just see what's happening now.

Your tie is so vivid to me right now. I'm watching you think. I'm hearing what you say and I'm also hearing what's coming up out of the back of my own head because I'm more connected to that than I would be if I was worried about what I was going to say next.

Tavis: That's fascinating to me, in part, because it gives a whole new meaning to that advice we hear all the time to "live in the moment." What you're saying is right. We're living like in five-second moments.

Alda: Five-second moments. It just keeps moving and I'm trying to just keep up with it as it goes, you know. I mean, look, I was trained to do this as an actor. You know, you got to stay in the moment as an actor. You act moment to moment. You don't decide the night before how you're going to play it. You don't think as you're in this moment, "How am I going to say that next line?" You just are there for each moment.

So I've had experience in doing this and I'm getting better and better at it on the stage. But in my own private life, I never went for it the way I'm going for it now and it's really interesting. It's funny that that gives me a sense of meaning and that's not one of the things that are listed in the list of meaningful activities.

Continued: Tavis Smiley Show September 21, 2007

For more information on his new book, visit www.alanaldabook.com

OR see it at Amazon.com: Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself

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