Tom Magliozzi, co-host of NPR's Car Talk along with brother Ray, didn't live forever — even though "Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers" may well achieve immortality in audio archives. But it doesn't seem like he'd have wanted to. Magliozzi, who died Monday at age 77 from complications of Alzheimer's, pooh-poohed the idea in his and Ray's joint 1999 commencement address to their alma mater, MIT.
You can watch the entire speech below — it's almost an hour, twice as long as scheduled — but two parts seem particularly relevant and valedictory today. The first, starting at about the 41-minute mark, is a disquisition by Tom about his theory of "reverse incarnation" — you come back as a dog, then a cow, then a worm — and the wisdom of not getting smarter as the path to enlightenment, plus examples of how that changed his life:
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