Once Upon A Time...

The TED Talk "Wisdom from Great Writers on Every Year of Life" by Joshua Prager explains how everyone ages, even though we do not all age at the same rate we pass through the same years. He explains that now there is a quote for every year of life up to 100. Joshua goes into explaining that even though people have different lives, and most things are not universal, age is one thing that can be understood amongst everyone. One example of the quotes of writing in aging is that not everyone ages at the same rate, one writer describes being 30 the same way another individual describes what 50 is like. His final point was that even though people age through and decease, a list would last forever. So he configured the whole list of great writers up to the age of 100 to chronicle a life year by year.

The speaker gets his point across through the use of both ethos and pathos. Ethos being the credibility of a source is used by Joshua in his talk by explain and citing the authors who wrote the individual quotes on a certain age in life. Also, he uncovers that the writer is the age in which they are explaining, so they have the credibility of being the age that they are describing in their quote. Joshua also uses pathos, which is his purpose of creating something that will accurate describe a life consistently throughout its entirety. This leads him to explain the list he created that contains quotes explaining life year to year, all the way up to 100. The speakers use of ethos and pathos provides more background to further understand why he is providing a speech on describing a life on different years.

This talk relates to me because I am only 18 years old and I have lived less than 20% of his list. So, by reading Joshua's list I could understand what my future might look like through the eyes of past great writers. I chose to watch this talk because I was curious on how great writers would phrase their wisdom on every year of life.