"Isabel Allende: How to live passionately—no matter your age" TED Talk
Famed novelist Isabelle Allende recounts and teaches how one
can live passionately throughout his or her life. In order to rid yourself of all the
worries and doubts plaguing and hindering your well-being, just learn to let go
of things and embrace life with a “yes” type of attitude. Whether it may be drama,
comedy, tragedy, love, death, or losses, saying yes to anything that comes your
way will definitely promote vigor and passion in what might otherwise turn into
a dull, dragged out life. She mentions a number of aging individuals who have
encountered hardship and/or started new passion projects later in life. They
all became happy and confident in whatever venture or decision they made,
including independence and an acceptance of a lack thereof.
Allende uses a great deal of pathos in her oration as a
method of easing the tension in the room and inviting the audience to celebrate
and sympathize with certain people she brings up. She offers the empowering
anecdote of the woman who, at the early age of 60, started working in Nepal to
save young girls from domestic bondage. Within 30 years she saved over 10000.
Audiences would feel admiration and inspiration from someone to achieve such a
feat at such a restricting age. Ethos is a sub level factored in due to the speaker’s
fame and respectability; she didn't have to mention other well-known names to
win the audience’s trust. The writer uses some logos with her presenting some
statistics of girls saved by a woman in her later years. Throughout the speech,
her reasoning was sound and applicable because all one needs to do is take her
advice to heart and believe and assume the mentality she was encouraging.
Allende failed to go in much detail about how she learned to let go and live passionately
aside from saying so and throwing in a couple bullet points. However, she
succeeded in captivating and entertaining the audience with sprinkled laughs
and endearing anecdotes.
I picked this talk because I was already familiar with one
of the author’s novels, La Ciudad de las Bestias, which I happened to read in my Spanish 4 class. Needless to say, I
loved the adventure book and gained much respect for the author, too. When I
saw her name on the first page of the TED results, I immediately chose her. I
wasn't disappointed and quickly learned a skill that I can actually apply to my
life – living passionately.
Love Allende as well- I recommend _The House of the Spirits_.
ReplyDeletePatrick, 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln once said, "And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” This quote is one that has profoundly impacted the way I view the value of my life in this world. I feel this quote is highly applicable to what Allende was talking about. I think it is a great lesson and one that many should go by. My question is to you..in this blog you talk about how saying yes to anything that comes your way will definitely promote vigor and passion in what might otherwise turn into a dull, dragged out life. Do you honestly think this is something that should be lived by? Are there limits to this? If so what?
ReplyDeleteI really liked this post and how you made it different even though a lot of people choose to do this video. I think the video was an inspiration and agree on your points of how the author gets her message through to the audience. I like that you also picked the video because you had heard of her before and that she puts positive messages in everything she does.
ReplyDeleteJust reading your response to this talk intrigued me to check it out myself, and all I can say is that I was not disappointed. The points the speaker made really made me think about the ways that I perceive certain things that occur to me everyday. It's true that just changing your mindset on ideas you're presented can really influence the way in which your life is lived. More specifically on your post, I thought it was original how you actually knew a previous piece of work from the speaker, and chose this talk based on this previous knowledge. You're one of the few posts that I've seen that could personally relate to past work from the presenter!
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