An excerpt from an interview between NPR’s Aaron Henkin & Patrick O’Brien. [POBF.org]

The full interview appears on Aaron’s program: “The Signal”. [WYPR, Baltimore]

Air date: Soon.

NPR:
On your website, you posit the question: “If you were given 2-5 years to live, what would you do?” Ever since I was a kid, I’ve heard people ask each other variations on this question, but it’s always been in the abstract, just as way to make conversation… but for you, there came a time when you had to ask yourself that same question, and there was nothing abstract about it… what’s it been like to try to figure out the answer?

POB:
Well, my Laura has me on a ten-year plan. So I can’t die before then. I think that focuses your mind, the window of two to five years. And everything changes overnight. You stop shooting video and you start shooting film. You stop getting into small arguments. You are able to navigate the world almost as if you have a GPS system that says ‘five years of battery left.’ And that informs all your decisions. It’s a good question for everyone to ask themselves. If you put yourself in that mind-space for a minute, that window of two to five years, what would anyone do. Most people will tell you the exact same answer: Eat all the chocolate you can. Run up the credit cards. Go to Las Vegas. Go for broke on all levels. And that’s what I’m doing. I’m going for it. I expect to live a long time. And there may be a cure, but if there’s none, the main thing is to live for the moment, for today. If you live in the now, you have access to the infinite. I always remember that. Eckhardt Tolle said that. If you live in the now, you have access to the infinite. And I can only do that 5 percent of the time, but that’s all you can do.