TED2003
Sherwin Nuland: The extraordinary power of ordinary people
Filmed:
Readability: 3.9
492,041 views
Sherwin Nuland, a surgeon and a writer, meditates on the idea of hope -- the desire to become our better selves and make a better world. It's a thoughtful 12 minutes that will help you focus on the road ahead.
Sherwin Nuland - Doctor
A practicing surgeon for three decades, Sherwin Nuland witnessed life and death in every variety. Then he turned to writing, exploring what there is to people beyond just anatomy. Full bio
A practicing surgeon for three decades, Sherwin Nuland witnessed life and death in every variety. Then he turned to writing, exploring what there is to people beyond just anatomy. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:12
You know, I am so bad at tech
0
0
5000
00:17
that my daughter -- who is now 41 --
1
5000
2000
00:19
when she was five, was overheard by me
2
7000
3000
00:22
to say to a friend of hers,
3
10000
2000
00:24
If it doesn't bleed when you cut it,
4
12000
2000
00:26
my daddy doesn't understand it.
5
14000
2000
00:28
(Laughter)
6
16000
1000
00:29
So, the assignment I've been given
7
17000
2000
00:31
may be an insuperable obstacle for me,
8
19000
2000
00:33
but I'm certainly going to try.
9
21000
3000
00:36
What have I heard
10
24000
2000
00:38
during these last four days?
11
26000
3000
00:41
This is my third visit to TED.
12
29000
2000
00:43
One was to TEDMED, and one, as you've heard,
13
31000
2000
00:45
was a regular TED two years ago.
14
33000
2000
00:47
I've heard what I consider an extraordinary thing
15
35000
3000
00:50
that I've only heard a little bit in the two previous TEDs,
16
38000
4000
00:54
and what that is is an interweaving
17
42000
3000
00:57
and an interlarding, an intermixing,
18
45000
3000
01:00
of a sense of social responsibility
19
48000
3000
01:03
in so many of the talks --
20
51000
3000
01:06
global responsibility, in fact,
21
54000
3000
01:09
appealing to enlightened self-interest,
22
57000
4000
01:13
but it goes far beyond enlightened self-interest.
23
61000
4000
01:17
One of the most impressive things
24
65000
2000
01:19
about what some, perhaps 10,
25
67000
3000
01:22
of the speakers have been talking about
26
70000
3000
01:25
is the realization, as you listen to them carefully, that they're not saying:
27
73000
3000
01:28
Well, this is what we should do; this is what I would like you to do.
28
76000
3000
01:31
It's: This is what I have done
29
79000
2000
01:33
because I'm excited by it,
30
81000
2000
01:35
because it's a wonderful thing, and it's done something for me
31
83000
3000
01:38
and, of course, it's accomplished a great deal.
32
86000
3000
01:41
It's the old concept, the real Greek concept,
33
89000
3000
01:44
of philanthropy in its original sense:
34
92000
4000
01:48
phil-anthropy, the love of humankind.
35
96000
3000
01:51
And the only explanation I can have
36
99000
2000
01:53
for some of what you've been hearing in the last four days
37
101000
3000
01:56
is that it arises, in fact, out of a form of love.
38
104000
4000
02:00
And this gives me enormous hope.
39
108000
3000
02:03
And hope, of course, is the topic
40
111000
2000
02:05
that I'm supposed to be speaking about,
41
113000
2000
02:07
which I'd completely forgotten about until I arrived.
42
115000
4000
02:11
And when I did, I thought,
43
119000
2000
02:13
well, I'd better look this word up in the dictionary.
44
121000
3000
02:16
So, Sarah and I -- my wife -- walked over to the public library,
45
124000
3000
02:19
which is four blocks away, on Pacific Street, and we got the OED,
46
127000
4000
02:23
and we looked in there, and there are 14 definitions of hope,
47
131000
4000
02:27
none of which really hits you
48
135000
3000
02:30
between the eyes as being the appropriate one.
49
138000
3000
02:33
And, of course, that makes sense,
50
141000
2000
02:35
because hope is an abstract phenomenon; it's an abstract idea,
51
143000
3000
02:38
it's not a concrete word.
52
146000
3000
02:41
Well, it reminds me a little bit of surgery.
53
149000
3000
02:44
If there's one operation for a disease, you know it works.
54
152000
4000
02:48
If there are 15 operations, you know that none of them work.
55
156000
2000
02:50
And that's the way it is with definitions of words.
56
158000
3000
02:53
If you have appendicitis, they take your appendix out, and you're cured.
57
161000
4000
02:57
If you've got reflux oesophagitis, there are 15 procedures,
58
165000
3000
03:00
and Joe Schmo does it one way
59
168000
2000
03:02
and Will Blow does it another way,
60
170000
2000
03:04
and none of them work, and that's the way it is with this word, hope.
61
172000
3000
03:07
They all come down to the idea of an expectation
62
175000
3000
03:10
of something good that is due to happen.
63
178000
3000
03:13
And you know what I found out?
64
181000
2000
03:15
The Indo-European root of the word hope
65
183000
3000
03:18
is a stem, K-E-U --
66
186000
2000
03:20
we would spell it K-E-U; it's pronounced koy --
67
188000
5000
03:25
and it is the same root from which the word curve comes from.
68
193000
4000
03:29
But what it means in the original Indo-European
69
197000
4000
03:33
is a change in direction, going in a different way.
70
201000
4000
03:37
And I find that very interesting and very provocative,
71
205000
3000
03:40
because what you've been hearing in the last couple of days
72
208000
3000
03:43
is the sense of going in different directions:
73
211000
4000
03:47
directions that are specific and unique to problems.
74
215000
3000
03:50
There are different paradigms.
75
218000
2000
03:52
You've heard that word several times in the last four days,
76
220000
2000
03:54
and everyone's familiar with Kuhnian paradigms.
77
222000
3000
03:57
So, when we think of hope now,
78
225000
2000
03:59
we have to think of looking in other directions
79
227000
3000
04:02
than we have been looking.
80
230000
3000
04:05
There's another -- not definition, but description, of hope
81
233000
3000
04:08
that has always appealed to me, and it was one by Václav Havel
82
236000
4000
04:12
in his perfectly spectacular book "Breaking the Peace,"
83
240000
4000
04:16
in which he says that hope
84
244000
2000
04:18
does not consist of the expectation that things will
85
246000
3000
04:21
come out exactly right,
86
249000
2000
04:23
but the expectation that they will make sense
87
251000
3000
04:26
regardless of how they come out.
88
254000
3000
04:29
I can't tell you how reassured I was
89
257000
3000
04:32
by the very last sentence
90
260000
3000
04:35
in that glorious presentation by Dean Kamen a few days ago.
91
263000
5000
04:40
I wasn't sure I heard it right,
92
268000
2000
04:42
so I found him in one of the inter-sessions.
93
270000
4000
04:46
He was talking to a very large man, but I didn't care.
94
274000
3000
04:49
I interrupted, and I said, "Did you say this?"
95
277000
2000
04:51
He said, "I think so."
96
279000
2000
04:53
So, here's what it is: I'll repeat it.
97
281000
2000
04:55
"The world will not be saved by the Internet."
98
283000
4000
04:59
It's wonderful. Do you know what the world will be saved by?
99
287000
4000
05:03
I'll tell you. It'll be saved by the human spirit.
100
291000
2000
05:05
And by the human spirit, I don't mean anything divine,
101
293000
3000
05:08
I don't mean anything supernatural --
102
296000
2000
05:10
certainly not coming from this skeptic.
103
298000
4000
05:14
What I mean is this ability
104
302000
2000
05:16
that each of us has
105
304000
2000
05:18
to be something greater than herself or himself;
106
306000
6000
05:24
to arise out of our ordinary selves and achieve something
107
312000
4000
05:28
that at the beginning we thought perhaps we were not capable of.
108
316000
4000
05:32
On an elemental level, we have all felt
109
320000
3000
05:35
that spirituality at the time of childbirth.
110
323000
3000
05:38
Some of you have felt it in laboratories;
111
326000
2000
05:40
some of you have felt it at the workbench.
112
328000
2000
05:42
We feel it at concerts.
113
330000
2000
05:44
I've felt it in the operating room, at the bedside.
114
332000
3000
05:47
It is an elevation of us beyond ourselves.
115
335000
3000
05:50
And I think that it's going to be, in time,
116
338000
4000
05:54
the elements of the human spirit that we've been hearing about
117
342000
4000
05:58
bit by bit by bit from so many of the speakers in the last few days.
118
346000
5000
06:03
And if there's anything that has permeated this room,
119
351000
4000
06:07
it is precisely that.
120
355000
3000
06:10
I'm intrigued by
121
358000
3000
06:13
a concept that was brought to life
122
361000
3000
06:16
in the early part of the 19th century --
123
364000
2000
06:18
actually, in the second decade of the 19th century --
124
366000
4000
06:22
by a 27-year-old poet
125
370000
3000
06:25
whose name was Percy Shelley.
126
373000
2000
06:27
Now, we all think that Shelley
127
375000
2000
06:29
obviously is the great romantic poet that he was;
128
377000
3000
06:32
many of us tend to forget that he wrote
129
380000
5000
06:37
some perfectly wonderful essays, too,
130
385000
3000
06:40
and the most well-remembered essay
131
388000
3000
06:43
is one called "A Defence of Poetry."
132
391000
4000
06:47
Now, it's about five, six, seven, eight pages long,
133
395000
3000
06:50
and it gets kind of deep and difficult after about the third page,
134
398000
3000
06:53
but somewhere on the second page
135
401000
4000
06:57
he begins talking about the notion
136
405000
4000
07:01
that he calls "moral imagination."
137
409000
5000
07:06
And here's what he says, roughly translated:
138
414000
5000
07:11
A man -- generic man --
139
419000
4000
07:15
a man, to be greatly good,
140
423000
3000
07:18
must imagine clearly.
141
426000
3000
07:21
He must see himself and the world
142
429000
5000
07:26
through the eyes of another,
143
434000
3000
07:29
and of many others.
144
437000
3000
07:34
See himself and the world -- not just the world, but see himself.
145
442000
6000
07:40
What is it that is expected of us
146
448000
3000
07:43
by the billions of people
147
451000
3000
07:46
who live in what Laurie Garrett the other day
148
454000
3000
07:49
so appropriately called
149
457000
2000
07:51
despair and disparity?
150
459000
2000
07:53
What is it that they have every right
151
461000
4000
07:57
to ask of us?
152
465000
2000
07:59
What is it that we have every right to ask of ourselves,
153
467000
4000
08:03
out of our shared humanity and out of the human spirit?
154
471000
5000
08:08
Well, you know precisely what it is.
155
476000
3000
08:11
There's a great deal of argument
156
479000
2000
08:13
about whether we, as the great nation that we are,
157
481000
4000
08:17
should be the policeman of the world,
158
485000
3000
08:20
the world's constabulary,
159
488000
3000
08:23
but there should be virtually no argument
160
491000
4000
08:27
about whether we should be the world's healer.
161
495000
5000
08:32
There has certainly been no argument about that
162
500000
3000
08:35
in this room in the past four days.
163
503000
4000
08:39
So, if we are to be the world's healer,
164
507000
3000
08:42
every disadvantaged person in this world --
165
510000
3000
08:45
including in the United States -- becomes our patient.
166
513000
5000
08:50
Every disadvantaged nation, and perhaps our own nation,
167
518000
4000
08:54
becomes our patient.
168
522000
3000
08:57
So, it's fun to think about the etymology of the word "patient."
169
525000
5000
09:02
It comes initially from the Latin patior, to endure, or to suffer.
170
530000
9000
09:11
So, you go back to the old Indo-European root again,
171
539000
3000
09:14
and what do you find? The Indo-European stem is pronounced payen --
172
542000
4000
09:18
we would spell it P-A-E-N -- and, lo and behold, mirabile dictu,
173
546000
5000
09:23
it is the same root as the word compassion comes from, P-A-E-N.
174
551000
6000
09:29
So, the lesson is very clear. The lesson is that our patient --
175
557000
5000
09:34
the world, and the disadvantaged of the world --
176
562000
4000
09:38
that patient deserves our compassion.
177
566000
5000
09:43
But beyond our compassion, and far greater than compassion,
178
571000
3000
09:46
is our moral imagination
179
574000
2000
09:48
and our identification with each individual
180
576000
4000
09:52
who lives in that world,
181
580000
3000
09:55
not to think of them as a huge forest,
182
583000
4000
09:59
but as individual trees.
183
587000
3000
10:02
Of course, in this day and age, the trick is not to let each tree
184
590000
4000
10:06
be obscured by that Bush in Washington that can get --
185
594000
4000
10:10
can get in the way.
186
598000
2000
10:12
(Laughter)
187
600000
2000
10:14
So, here we are.
188
602000
2000
10:16
We are, should be,
189
604000
3000
10:19
morally committed to
190
607000
3000
10:22
being the healer of the world.
191
610000
4000
10:26
And we have had examples over and over and over again --
192
614000
4000
10:30
you've just heard one in the last 15 minutes --
193
618000
4000
10:34
of people who have not only had that commitment,
194
622000
4000
10:38
but had the charisma, the brilliance --
195
626000
2000
10:40
and I think in this room it's easy to use the word brilliant, my God --
196
628000
4000
10:44
the brilliance to succeed at least at the beginning
197
632000
4000
10:48
of their quest,
198
636000
2000
10:50
and who no doubt will continue to succeed,
199
638000
3000
10:53
as long as more and more of us enlist ourselves in their cause.
200
641000
4000
10:58
Now, if we're talking
201
646000
3000
11:01
about medicine,
202
649000
2000
11:03
and we're talking about healing,
203
651000
3000
11:06
I'd like to quote someone who hasn't been quoted.
204
654000
4000
11:10
It seems to me everybody in the world's been quoted here:
205
658000
2000
11:12
Pogo's been quoted;
206
660000
2000
11:14
Shakespeare's been quoted backwards, forwards, inside out.
207
662000
4000
11:18
I would like to quote one of my own household gods.
208
666000
3000
11:21
I suspect he never really said this,
209
669000
3000
11:24
because we don't know what Hippocrates really said,
210
672000
3000
11:27
but we do know for sure that one of the great Greek physicians
211
675000
3000
11:30
said the following,
212
678000
3000
11:33
and it has been recorded in one of the books attributed to Hippocrates,
213
681000
3000
11:36
and the book is called "Precepts."
214
684000
2000
11:38
And I'll read you what it is.
215
686000
3000
11:41
Remember, I have been talking about,
216
689000
3000
11:44
essentially philanthropy:
217
692000
2000
11:46
the love of humankind, the individual humankind
218
694000
5000
11:51
and the individual humankind
219
699000
2000
11:53
that can bring that kind of love
220
701000
2000
11:55
translated into action,
221
703000
3000
11:58
translated, in some cases, into enlightened self-interest.
222
706000
3000
12:01
And here he is, 2,400 years ago:
223
709000
4000
12:06
"Where there is love of humankind,
224
714000
4000
12:10
there is love of healing."
225
718000
3000
12:13
We have seen that here today
226
721000
3000
12:16
with the sense,
227
724000
2000
12:18
with the sensitivity --
228
726000
3000
12:21
and in the last three days,
229
729000
2000
12:23
and with the power of the indomitable human spirit.
230
731000
4000
12:27
Thank you very much.
231
735000
2000
12:29
(Applause)
232
737000
2000
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Sherwin Nuland - DoctorA practicing surgeon for three decades, Sherwin Nuland witnessed life and death in every variety. Then he turned to writing, exploring what there is to people beyond just anatomy.
Why you should listen
Sherwin Nuland was a practicing surgeon for 30 years and treated more than 10,000 patients -- then became an author and speaker on topics no smaller than life and death, our minds, our morality, aging and the human spirit.
His 1994 book How We Die: Reflections of Life's Final Chapter demythologizes the process of dying. Through stories of real patients and his own family, he examines the seven most common causes of death: old age, cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, accidents, heart disease and stroke, and their effects. The book, one of more than a dozen he wrote, won the National Book Award, was a finalist for the Pultizer Prize, and spent 34 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. Other books include How We Live, The Art of Aging: A Doctor's Prescription for Well-Being; and The Soul of Medicine: Tales from the Bedside.
Sherwin Nuland | Speaker | TED.com