15: Sum
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For meditation number fifteen we have a reading from David Eagleman's book Sum. It's a vision of the after life that's both playful and... horrifying. Sum is read by actor Jeffrey Tambor.
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RIDILEB is supported by AT&T. We all love to connect via video calls or texts. Right now, at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0 with iPhone trade-in. Any condition. It has the ultimate pro camera system and big leap in battery life, so you can turn this deal into a long-lasting connection. Learn how you can trade in your iPhone for the new iPhone 18 Pro requires trade-in of iPhone 14 or higher, excluding iPhone 16E, an eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply, subject to change, visit an AT&T store for details. Hey, I'm Chad Abumrod. And I'm Robert Krollich. This is Radio Lab, the podcast. We're up to number 15 now. As you can tell the last few days, we've been extending our afterlife show. It's the op-pray or the after afterlife show. Exactly. And for number 15, we have a reading from David Eagleman's book, Some, a story called Some, which is in fact the story that got us interested in doing the entire afterlife show to begin with. Yeah, 'cause it is so, it's so summery, actually, in the S U M M A R Y sense. Right. And it's read for us again by actor Jeffrey Tambor. All right, try it. Take two. In the afterlife, you relive all your experiences, but this time, with the events reshuffled into a new order. You see, all the moments that share equality are grouped together. For instance, you spend two months driving the street in front of your house, seven months having sex. You sleep for 30 years without opening your eyes. For five months straight, you flip through magazines while sitting on the toilet. You take all your pain at once, all 27 intense hours of it, bones break, cars crash, skin is cut, babies are born. But once you make it through, it's agony free for the rest of your afterlife. That doesn't always mean it's pleasant. I mean, you spend six days clipping your nails, 15 months looking for lost items, 18 months waiting in line, two years of boredom, staring out a bus window, sitting in an airport terminal waiting online, one year reading books. Your eyes hurt, though, and you itch because you can't take a shower until it's your time to take your marathon 200-day shower. Two weeks wondering what happens when you die. One minute realizing your body's fallen, 77 hours of confusion, one hour realizing you forgotten someone's name, three weeks realizing you're wrong. Two days lying, six weeks waiting for a green light, seven hours vomiting, 14 minutes experiencing your joy. Three months doing laundry, 15 hours riding your signature. Two days tying shoelaces, 67 days of heartbreak. Five weeks driving lost, three days calculating, restaurant tips, 51 days deciding what to wear, nine days pretending you know what is being talked about. Two weeks counting money, 18 hours staring into the refrigerator.
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For meditation number fifteen we have a reading from David Eagleman's book Sum. It's a vision of the after life that's both playful and... horrifying. Sum is read by actor Jeffrey Tambor.