Who would you trade places with?

May 12, 2016 • 12:00 pm

I don’t know why, but this question struck me as I was taking a walk yesterday.  And I suppose all of us ponder it sometimes: we see some famous person, or courageous person, or person doing good works, and think, “Boy, I’d like to trade places with him/her!” I don’t think about that often, as by and large I’ve been satisfied with my life, but yesterday I thought, “Who would I trade places with if I could?”

So today I’ll give you a few answers, but I’m writing this mainly to solicit responses from readers. And to do that, I have to set forth some Roolz:

  1. You can be a person of any gender.
  2. You can be a person who is either living or dead (but of course you have to have been a person when he or she was alive).
  3. You don’t have to have been that person all their lives, but for at least 15 years (it can be longer), and you can specify which period you’d like.
  4. You have to have lived the actual life that person lived; you can’t change things.
  5. You have to explain why you want to be that person.

Now I suspect many of you will say, “I don’t want to trade places with anyone, I just want to be myself”.  And you can answer that way, though it’s a bit boring.

When I ponder who I’d want to change places with, the people fall into two categories: those who had a life full of pleasure, and those who did the best for humanity in their lives. These correspond, roughly, to the classic dichotomy between the Apollonian and Dionysian lives. Let’s start with the hedonism.

Dionysian:  I would want to have been a rock star, but one who was great in all three areas: composition, virtuosity on an instrument, and vocal talent. When I think of those, it would have to be one of two people: either Stephen Stills or Paul McCartney.  For McCartney, the period I’d want to be him would be from when he first met John Lennon until he turned the age I am now, since he’s still in good nick (from age 15 on). For Stills, it would be from when he started Buffalo Springfield until he left Manassas and his music started waning (roughly 1965-1980, from when he was 20-35).  (If I were to change gender, I’d be Joni Mitchell, also immensely talented in the Three Areas.)

Why a rock star like that? Both of these men gave people immense pleasure, or at least gave me immense pleasure. McCartney, of course, also helped changed the face of music. Stills was a better instrumentalist, and, in his prime, had a fantastic blues voice.

And I’d want to be able to construct a whole song, from the composition through the playing and singing, with nobody intervening (except for John Lennon, which is okay). You’d be very well off doing something that basically has no down side, and it would be easy to meet women. (Both of these guys were really good looking in their heyday, something that I envy; and I am also shy. In fact, I consider Steve Stills is his prime to be the handsomest rock star ever.)

Apollonian. One name springs to mind: Jonas Salk. He not only developed an effective killed-virus polio vaccine, saving millions of lives, but gave it away. He didn’t want much for himself, and I greatly admire that. What satisfaction it must have brought to have saved the lives of so many people, mostly children, and have largely eliminated the scourge of polio from our planet!

********

I don’t have much concern with my legacy, with what will remain when I’m gone. After all, I won’t know about it! Concern with legacies always mystifies me. One thing I can say, though: if Salk hadn’t developed the polio vaccine, someone else would have (indeed, Alfred Sabin developed a live-virus vaccine before Salk, though it became largely obsolete). The musical talents of McCartney and Stills, however, are irreplaceable.

Okay, I’ve had my say. Your turn; and remember the rules. Think hard, too. And no criticizing my own choices!

Steven-Stills-1976
Stephen Stills in his prime

 

853de2b8224c681079a3a66111bd97ec
A younger Paul McCartney

 

jonas-salk
Jonas Salk, hero of humanity

 

210 thoughts on “Who would you trade places with?”

  1. Hitler. For the last 15 years of his life. Let’s just say I’d do things differently.

      1. So I couldn’t call off the Holocaust and you couldn’t prevent the release of the “Illegal Stills” album? OK. Let me think.

      2. This came up in a joint television interview with Ann Coulter and Al Franken. They were asked the same question. AC first replied she would like to have been Senator Joe McCarthy. Then she said, I would like to have been Franklin Roosevelt and NOT done the New Deal.

        Al Franken then responded, “Well as long as we’re wanting to be famous people so we can change their minds, I would like to have been Hitler, and skipped that whole Holocaust thing….but I would have kept the Volkswagen.”

        Short clip limited to this bit of business non-imbedded here.
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=susZ2ceEHwk

    2. Not allowed to change things? Blast! I was going to say:

      Hitler’s barber.

      On condition that he used a cutthroat razor.

      Got to be Sir David Attenborough then. 90 years old and still getting paid to witness the amazing.

      1. I have very much envied his life as a narrator of nature, and he got to travel the world and see amazing critters.
        He also he had a boat named after him, I hear, a boat that shoulda been called Boaty McBoat Face.

    1. I said the same thing in Kindergarten when we were given this question. My Kindergarten teacher thought this was somehow expressive of confidence and security but I was actually a real insecure kid with a lot of anxiety. I just knew it could be way worse. Sort of the devil you know. I could have really crazy parents or no parents, I could have low intelligence, etc.

      Now, when asked the question “would you rather be smart or beautiful” I stupidly answered “smart” because I figured if smart enough, you could get work done that would make you beautiful. Foolish child, we all know that smartness does not translate into monetary richness.

          1. You certainly may have gotten both. (“certainly may” – does this construction make sense?) Even if you have, there are successful, beautiful idiots everywhere. Everywhere.

  3. I am wondering how many are going to answer this challenge with the statement: “I’d be Jerry Coyne”.

    I mean, who wouldn’t want to be uber-intelligent, published, completely affable, engagingly charismatic and a prolific blog writer? * wink *

    1. Good idea. I’d like to be Jerry Coyne, but without the innumerable food postings.
      I know, I’ve changed something…so sue me.

  4. Carl Sagan… getting to be a part of the team that sent probes to Mars and the out planets… totally awesome. Plus, he was such a good guy.

  5. John Young, from his Gemini days through Apollo (he walked on the moon) and the Space Shuttle (he was the first to fly it.)

    or

    Hugh Hefner, from the early days of Playboy through whenever I got tired of sleeping with the most gorgeous women on the planet.

    Call me shallow.

  6. Well, I’m very happy being me. But if I had to choose, if I were forced to choose …

    Dionysian: Bruce Cockburn, for all the reasons you list above for Stills and McCartney (well, he is not as good-looking as those guys).

    I still have occasional dreams in which I am at home, jamming with Bruce Cockburn (I’m a guitar player). Bruce has just dropped by to jam (like he always does!). And damn but I am good in those dreams.

    Always good for a laugh for my wife!

    And I’ll add, from a colleague who used to be in a semi-successful rock band (he’s now an engineer): “When you get up on that stage and hit that first power chord, with the amps over-driven and turned all the way up [“to 11!”], you just can never beat that feeling.”

    Apollonian: Galileo Galilei. After reading his writings and about him, he strikes me as the first true scientist, especially in his demands for evidence. And what an exciting time to be at the edge of science that was — when one could encompass optics, physics, chemistry, anatomy, etc., etc. Reading what he wrote about objects in motions, he got Newtons Laws of motion, he just didn’t compose the maths to define them: Which was crucial.

    His thumbing his nose at the church was good too.

    Anyway, My $0.02

    1. Power chord: Noun, musical term. Used by rockers to feel important when speaking about music. A triad with the third removed. Yields a slightly ambiguous (between major and minor sound) energetic and, well, powerful, sound, especially when over-driven. A staple of rock and roll music, at least since the 1960s. 🙂

        2. OK, I see that. I never thought of it as a power chord though!

          My wife and I naturally fall into a fifth interval when singing together.

          The 4th and 5th intervals really are special. I wish I could understand the acoustical/psychological/sensory reason for that.

          And I continue to be astonished at the effect of moving the third between a major or minor third interval has on the sound of a triad. And why does a minor chord sound “sad”. It really does. So weird.

          1. The perfect intervals are the small-number ratios of the frequencies of the fundamental. The perfect octave is 1:2; the perfect fifth is 2:3; the perfect fourth is 3:4 (or 3:2 if you ignore the octave).

            So…let’s make the math easy and pick a low-pitched middle C of 260 Hz for our reference. (Middle C is usually 261.6 Hz, but we’re making the math easy.)

            The octave is 1:2, giving us 520 Hz for the next C up.

            1:2 :: 520:x => 1x = 520*2

            The fifth is 2:3, giving us G at 390 Hz.

            2:3 :: 520:x => 2x = 520*3 =>gt; x = 520 * 3 / 2

            The fourth is 3:4, giving us F at 346 2/3 Hz.

            3:4 :: 520:x => 3x = 520*4 =>gt; x = 520 * 4 / 3

            Also note that a fourth above G = 390 Hz is C at 520 Hz. Similarly, a fifth above F = 346 2/3 Hz is also C at 520 Hz.

            Where it really starts to get interesting is with so-called “resultant tones.” Add two sine waves together and you get new peaks and valleys as they reinforce and cancel each other out, resulting in a much more complex waveform. As it turns out, with a perfect fifth, the most acoustically prominent such result is an octave (I forget which) of the major third of the scale — meaning you can play a major triad with just two notes! Further, the resultant chords you get from playing a major scale against a pedal tone of the perfect fifth…well, that’s basically your standard Western tonal chord progression.

            This would be the place to insert a really big caveat about tuning systems. Everything I wrote applies to “just” intonation, which sticks to the whole-number ratios, is valid only for the single key, and is what musicians naturally adjust to when not playing fixed-pitch instruments.

            A perfect fifth above our G = 390 Hz example is D = 585 Hz. Another fifth is A = 877.5 Hz. Keep that up and you’ll eventually wind up back at another C some octaves up…but it won’t be a perfect multiple of 520…which is a problem

            The most common and most practical compromise is to abandon whole-number ratios and instead pick a fixed reference pitch (typically A = 440 Hz) and then calculate semitones by multiplying by the twelfth root of 2. Everything except the octaves is out of tune to some degree, some more than others…but nothing is too terribly out of tune, all things considered.

            …and I should probably get back to work now….

            b&

            >

          3. The reason the fifth is such an important interval would seem to me to have to do with its place in the harmonic series. It’s stable, and I think this stability is comes from the fact that an in-tune fifth will have just about no perceptible beats and the upper pitch could even escape notice, being subsumed into the lower pitch’s overtone series. The non-perfect intervals demand more attention – they don’t have as much of this “blind spot” engendering stability. Not a complete analysis, but an important part of the explanation, I think.

          4. Thanks, this makes sense (both of your notes).

            In reply to both you and Ben:

            I get the math (I’m a geek engineer!*). What I am interested in is more the sensory and psychological part of it. Why do we perceive it the way we do? I have yet to read anything very compelling on that. Levitan’s book about the brain and music isn’t bad. Sacks’s book is a fun read but doesn’t really dig into this.

            I (more or less) understand the temperament schemes, the math of the intervals. But those don’t explain why they sound a certain way to our ears (and it’s pretty universal, with some major caveats for those who are “tone deaf” and those acculturated to other interval schemes (e.g. Gamelan, etc.).

            Ben, you bring up another interesting point that I also find fascinating (wave superposition). A recording of a symphony orchestra (or any complex music) can be integrated down to a single (or two for stereo) wave shape (albeit very complicated), physically scribed into a disc of plastic. And when reproduced, our brains can pick out all the instruments, timings, dynamics, etc. That is an amazing feat. One complex pressure wave can carry all that information to our brains.

            As it turns out, with a perfect fifth, the most acoustically prominent such result is an octave (I forget which) of the major third of the scale — meaning you can play a major triad with just two notes!

            Which is weird, because fifth chords don’t sound “major”. Maybe that’s because it’s a weak(er) harmonic than a directly input major 3rd? Or maybe some of that even-temperament cumulative “error” plays into making it just “off” enough …

            Some day, I would love to hear a piano played in just temperament. From what I’ve read, it has an amazing sound that doesn’t come across well in recordings.

            (* And a fretted instrument designer/builder. I’m very comfortable with calculus, log, exponential, polynomial, etc. ratios, and so on, physics (wave interactions).)

          5. I’m not sure there’s a deeper answer concerning the normal perception of major/minor than conditioning. How/why did this association in western music come about in the first place? That’s an interesting question, and I’m not sure it can be conclusively answered. But this association is a western phenomenon, which at least shows it’s not a universal of human auditory perception. Indeed, I myself don’t really hear a major or minor triad alone as being suggestive of any emotion. Put it in context, and then it starts to be. Even then, it’s not that simple. A major triad can “sound sad” in a certain context – think the end of the second phrase in Solveig’s Lied. And an overall major context can sound sad – think the Air from Bach’s third orchestral suite.

          8. When I was noting about universal-sounding, I meant the 4th and 5th intervals, and that seems driven by the harmonics. I didn’t make that very clear.

          11. Very interesting.

            In that “harmonic” dominant 7th chord, it sort of loses the whole dominant 7th sound. You almost totally lose the “bluesy” sound of the dominant 7th.

            The other thing is that “perfect” doesn’t exist in guitars (short of a guitar which had adjustments for each string at each fret — such guitars exists; but they aren’t very practical), due to compensation (scroll down to the compensation discussion).

      1. Definitely Richard Feynman.

        On the Dionysian side I think Carole King, from “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” through “Tapestry” album.

        Actually, I’ve had a very full life and still enjoying it, with all its ups and downs, so perhaps I’ll just be me.

    3. fwiw, I think that Bruce Cockburn lives in my neighborhood and that my ex’s step-daughter went to elementary school with Bruce’s daughter. I’ve never run into him.

      2. I’ve read his autobiography and viewed a couple of CBC films about him and he is very shy. Amazingly, for someone who spends his professional life on stage.

        1. I got the impression a lot of performing artists (musicians, actors, etc.) are actually very shy or otherwise socially awkward, and *that’s why* they perform, so as to “control the situation” or the like.

          2. I was a coordinator for ten years with the Mariposa Folk Festival so I’ve met him briefly. Really nice guy, he is quite reserved…not sure if I’d call it shyness…

  7. Isambard Brunel. 19th century engineer who changed the face of Britian through railways and bridges, changed the way ships were built and the purposes to which they were put….
    He was not afraid to take on any technical challenge, including those that pushed the capabilities of the day.

    2. HMMM. Mr Kingdom (his middle name; one with attitude) has at least Telford to compete with him for the “re-engineering Britan” cap.

  8. I am quite happy with how I lived my life (so far) and do not wish to have lived as another person.

    I would like to have had a natural talent like music (singing or playing or even composing).

    I also would have preferred to have had some genetic characteristics that are different than I possess (taller, etc. 🙂 ).

    I wanna be me

    1. The idea of musical ability being a “natural talent” is a somewhat problematic idea. Mozart on his own abilities:

      ”
      It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I.”

      1. Yes, but in my mind this is similar to athletic ability. Russell Westbrook was born genetically gifted, but he has also worked extremely hard to develop that ability, becoming what should be a Hall of Fame player because of it. While I can play basketball I can never play to his level. I view musical propensity in the same way. I would think there are many folks out there with a great ear for music and fine motor skills to apply it that never put in enough work to bring it all the way to the top level of musicians, just as there are likely some who work their tucchus off who also never get near the top.

        1. Yes, but it’s a mistake to think those at the tops didn’t also work their tuchus off. The notion of a great composer who was just born with compositional talent and didn’t need to study or work on it is a fiction.

          1. I agree. That is what I am saying. Yes, he worked very hard to become the very best, probably a lot harder than most of us can imagine, but he likely had a better place from which to start in terms of ability or potential or gifts, what have you. It’s a perfect combination of talent and effort. And desire. Take any of those the out of the equation and he’s just a good musician.

  9. Pat Metheny from the ages of 22 to 38 (I know its 16 years, but I’m greedy). His music has been a constant in my life for the last 20 years. He is probably the most talented Jazz guitarist of his generation and an incredible composer. And yes, if I were to change gender, definitely Joni Mitchell.

  10. If I would lose 15 years of my own life then no one, but if I would get an extra 15, and return at the moment I left, then it would be the next 15 years of someone’s life. Someone young, healthy, and wealthy in the tech field. Maybe someone like Mark Zuckerberg.

  11. Michael Palin.

    Python and Ripping Yarns.

    Travelling the world (paid for by the BBC).

    Being nice.

    That would do for me.

  12. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but I don’t get the point of wanting to be (say) Paul McCartney, living exactly the life McCartney lived in every detail. That person wouldn’t be me; that would be McCartney. He certainly doesn’t need my help to enjoy his own life, and I’d rather enjoy mine than eavesdrop on his for 15 years.

    I think when people say “I’d like to be that guy!” they don’t mean in the sense of the rules given here. They mean they’d like to live in circumstances similar to that guy, but live it their own way, not playing out someone else’s script.

      1. You know, as miserable a bastard as Hitler was, Stalin had a much worse body count.

        For that matter, one could point to the example Caesar set by turning the Republic into the Imperium…rewrite that bit of history with a result other than a strong-man dictator wielding unimaginable power with popular acclaim, and you might set an example that outright avoids all the imitators since then, but perhaps even leaves the Roman civilization intact. In which case civilization would be at least a millennium more advanced than it is today…

        …which goes to demonstrate just how tricky these “what if” scenarios can be.

        b&

        >

      1. OK, but being compelled to live it exactly as he did, without even the illusion of volition, seems more like a nightmare.

        1. Of course, without the illusion of volition you probably wouldn’t be complying with the exactly as he did stricture.

  13. The problem with trading places and having to live the life chosen by the other person is that it basically means giving up your identity. I don’t think anyone wants to give up his identity.

    When we think about trading places, what we really imagine is being ourselves plus the additional assets possessed by the other person.

    That being the case, I’d like to have the assets of Bill Gates over the last 15 years, who has spent his time and money attempting to do good in the world. His Foundation started in 2000, so the time period is about right.

    1. So what if we imagine we can retain our own identity and also live life as someone else? Jerry’s not proposing an actual experiment here. Giving reasons for why it’s not feasible is missing the point. Whose life do you admire so much that you wouldn’t necessarily change anything if it were yours?

        1. You would be, if you were to somehow actually do it. Yes, there is an impossible component to this fantasy, as there are to many fantasies.

          1. Yes, I tend to lose interest in fantasies when I realize they’re, by definition, impossible. For instance, I gave up superhero fantasies when I realized that wearing a costume under your street clothes would be very hot and uncomfortable. And who has time to go out at night fighting crime when you have laundry to do?

          2. As if it’s not depressing enough thinking of all the people I admire who’re smarter, achieved more, contributed more, you have to remind me how mundane my life is. Oop, there’s the dryer buzzer. Gotta go. 😉

      2. I think there’s room for more than one point. Some of us find the question of what the game could actually mean to be at least as interesting as the game itself. I don’t see any harm in that. As Dan Dennett says, one should always twist the knobs on one’s thought experiments to see how robust they are.

        2. Indeed; I’m reading through the comments and trying to figure out what it would mean to say that I was instead someone else. (Or put in material mode, what it would be to be someone else.)

          The closest I can get is to imagine that the real me somehow tags along “inside” someone for 15 years or whatever. Off hand, I would think that would be interesting but also horrifying, because you’d “just watch” as your “host” made mistakes, got hurt, etc.

          3. Making mistakes and getting hurt are the least of it; 90% of the time it would be the most boring movie ever, as you live through someone else’s laundry, hangovers, bad dates, nose-picking, constipation, interminable staff meetings, and who knows what else.

            So I guess my pick is Jack Bauer.

    2. Exactly. If you “trade places” but give “me” Bill Gates’s experiences, thoughts, feelings, body … then there’s nothing left of me in that Microsoft executive suite. Meanwhile, the place occupied by my bald head and hairy body would have nothing Bill Gates-ish about it. You’ve just re-created the existing universe, and switched some labels. Without dualism of body/brain vs “soul” the thought experiment can’t get off the ground.

          1. I can’t claim to know Jerry’s mind, but I’d bet a lot of money the point was to poll his readers on who they admire or think had an interesting life, not to flesh out a philosophical conundrum.

          2. Sure, but it’s still interesting that a smart confirmed atheist skeptic like JAC phrases a question in a way that leads straight to that philosophical conundrum. It shows how easy it is to slip into dualistic speech patterns (if not thought patterns).

  14. In the 1990s about the time I threw in the towel on acting as a sideline, I said if I could play any heroic figure of choice, it would be King Arthur and if I could play any villain of choice, it would be Norman Bates.

    Actor Freddie Highmore has now played youthful versions of both. Admittedly, he has only 5 minutes of screen time as a 7 year old King Arthur (in the television mini-series of “Mists of Avalon”). He has been doing a fine job in the excellent but deeply disturbing cable TV series “Bates Motel” as Norman Bates. (he was also British Peter as the inspiration for Peter Pan in the movie about Pan author JM Barrie in “Finding Neverland”.)

    So, I think on the acting side….Freddie Highmore!!

    Highmore (looking very feminine) is the left front figure as King Arthur here
    http://www.teenidols4you.com/blink/Actors/freddie_highmore/SG_141278_Highmore.jpg
    and as Bates here
    http://www.sefijaonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Freddie_HIghmore_bates_motel670.jpg

    On the Apollonian side, there are numerous mathematicians I would like to have been, but I think I will narrow it down to Georg Cantor or Kurt Gödel.

    1. Kurt Gödel as he went bonkers and starved himself to death? No, thanks.

      (Not a mathemetician), but how about Alexander von Humboldt?

      2. Cantor had a pretty rough time of it, too. Perhaps by sticking to the pre-1884 (<age 39) years one could avoid the ravages of a probable bipolar disorder.

      3. Technically, its the math achievements of them I like best. Perhaps I should just settle for having Freddie Highmore play Godel in a movie 🙂

  16. My first choice is my own life which has been and continues to be astoundingly interesting which is all I ask.

    Second choice is to be Françoise Gilot from the moment of her birth to her present age of ninety-four. Why? She’s virtually indestructible because of her fantastic character, lucidity, intelligence, talent, courage, physical health, and resilience. Besides I would have kicked Pablo Picasso’s psychopathic arse to the curb and married Jonas Salk though I would had some difficulty in being Paloma’s mom. 🙂
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7oise_Gilot

    1. I had totally forgotten ( or perhaps never known) that Françoise was married to Salk!!! I did read her bio years ago.

  17. I was thinking maybe Robert Green Ingersoll because I admire him so much. But he died at about the age I am now, so maybe not.

  18. PCC, you didn’t offer the option of living as a kitteh!!!!

    Though, according to kittehs, their lives are rough – for example, not getting fed instantly when they demand it…

    A half full bowl. Not being allowed to rip apart the computer cables at will…

    The list goes on – so many indignities that oppressed kittehs must endure!

    1. If we get to choose animals, I’d choose either a swift, golden eagle, or frigate bird. Of course, I’d really want to bend the rules as I’d want to retain some semblance of human thought.

  19. For me it’s easy. Charles Darwin. His entire life. For one he had a good childhood, he was raised in a well off family, so it probably gave him time to be an amateur naturalist growing up. I would have enjoyed that! conversely his health problems later on when it started during his journey to the Galapagos Islands would have been awful. But I’ll take all that just to have that sense of elation for truth and the discovery of how nature works going back to “my” inquisitive childhood wonders. Oh and one more thing. I would have relished the fact that “my theory” refutes religions of every kind.

      1. I was going to invoke rule #4. If Darwin didn’t relish refuting religion, then neither can Nick.

      2. Still Darwin because:
        a} His legacy lives on
        b) I don’t think he would have accepted rule based limitations…
        c) I’ve walked around the Sandwalk so I’ve already moved through the space he occupied

      3. maka maka! That’s what I get for rushing to write something out during work.

        1. “maka maka! That’s what I get for rushing to write something out during work.”

          Lot’s of people seem to have missed that rule.

  21. I’ll need to ponder the Dionysian choice (don’t care to have anything to do with being an addict, for one thing), but on the Apollonian side, I’d go with a gender switch and choose John Muir. I think the 1890s-early 1900s period of his life would be best, to coincide with the establishment of Yosemite NP and the National Park System (and to avoid the later tragedy of losing the Hetch Hetchy Valley). Muir was physically active and, as my grandmother would say, “spry,” so I’m not at all worried about the age. Muir’s books on the Sierra and Yosemite are relevant and informative to this day (in fact I just loaned one to a student who’s traveling this summer), and I admire his productivity, passion, and lyrical style.

    Of course I’d have to be religious, though. I think it’s a reasonable trade-off for 15 years of traveling, writing, exploring, and being in the wilderness that I love.

  22. A hard choice…

    Leonardo de Vinci might be fun. I aim to be a bit of a Renaissance man myself, and to work in so many interesting areas.

    H.G. Wells would be another. I like writing, and to essentially create a new genre.

    On the other hand, I’d like to be either the first person to invent a teleporter, or the first person to land on Mars. (If I invent the teleporter, I’d give it to NASA for free under the condition that when they land one on anything, and I get to be the first person to go through it).

    Otherwise I’d like to be an actor like Ian Charleson. Having a major role in 2 Academy Award winning films, but able to walk the streets unrecognized.

    1. I’d go with da Vinci. I love the combination of inventing, natural science, and art.

  23. George Bernard Dantzig, who discovered the Simplex Algorithm in Linear Programming.

    Sir David Attenborough.

    John von Neumann, although he was a bit before my time.

    1. David Attenborough was who I immediately thought of. Oddly enough, I think I’d categorize him as a Dionysian choice–going the places he went and seeing the things he saw would be nothing but pure pleasure.

  24. I would like to have been around 40 – 50 thousand years ago and have seen / interacted with Neanderthals, mammoths and saber tooth tigers. So maybe some random tribal chief back then. Would have been a crappy but interesting life.

  25. Darwinian considerations compel me to choose Ghengis Khan during his years of fertility. I’ll skip his childhood and dotage, thanks very much.

    1. Hmmm. Interesting choice. That demographic aspect of it simply did not occur to me as being interesting. Different folks, different spokes.
      I was thinking for my Appollonian choice as Darwin’s assistant on the Beagle (though he actually went through several). But for the Dionysian choice, Messilina (2nd wife of Emperor Claudius). Though since she barely (literally) made it to 25 IIRC, the 15 year rule is a bit problematic .
      OTOH, Swift’s Moll Flankers character had an interesting life. Good for seeing in several directions “how the other half lives”.

  26. I don’t wish to be anybody else. I do wish I were myself with more money and more time. I do wish I’d made different choices at certain points in my life so I could be in a somewhat different situation now.

  27. Years ago i thought i’d like to be Jennifer Aniston.She made millions was married to Brad Pitt.Soon after my thinking of how lucky she was look what happened. Brad left her for that Angelina woman.So maybe the life we think others are leading is not all that good.

  28. This question raises some philosophical questions. For example, if I were to trade places with (for example) Ghengis Khan, would I know, during the time I inhabited Ghengis Khan’s body and experienced his life, that it was actually me, from another existence? And if so, would that really be like trading places? And if not, what’s the point?

    Furthermore, since we’re trading places, Ghengis would find himself inhabiting my body and life, presumably against his will. He’d be pissed.

      1. But by definition, the subjective experience of being Ghengis Khan is something only he can have.

        Trading places actually makes more sense, to me at least. I can imagine assuming Ghengis Khan’s identity through some combination of time travel, plastic surgery, or whatever. I can’t really imagine being him and making the decisions he would make (per rule #4), and somehow still being me at the same time.

      2. Nagel could have titled his paper “What is it Like to be Ghengis Khan?” and it would have been just as valid.

      3. Then the question becomes whose life do you most admire? Which life would you most like to have lived? I ceases to be what it would be like to be that person. I think you’re underestimating the philosophical Problem of Other Minds (e.g. Wisdom, J., 1968, Other Minds, Oxford: Blackwell, 2nd edition), which weighs heavily on the hard problem of consciousness.

    2. You really don’t want to get Ghengiz pissed-off. Carries grudges, srsly!

      1. He’d have to take his revenge out on my contemporaries (including my descendants, and his), because I’d be back in the 12th century.

  29. I would choose any librarian at the Library of Alexandria at any time it wasn’t being burned. Imagine being able to read some of those ancient texts.

    1. Granted. Grab a broom – you’re drafted for the post-fire clean up squad.

      1. I’d gladly trade some manual labor if we were able to retain the knowledge from the experience. Maybe something even older, like the builders of Göbekli Tepe.

        1. Now that would have been an interesting time. Darned laws of physics – I want an exemption!

  30. Since it’s “Who would you trade places with?” does that mean if you’re a very unfortunate, poor, suffering person, you can choose someone you dislike on the basis that they’d have to experience the terrible life that you’re living now?

    (That’s not me, of course. I’m just feeling a little mischievous.)

  31. Dionysian: Giacomo Casanova, from age 17 (loosing virginity in a threesome) to his 30s (conning and philandering all the way through baroque time Europe following a dazzling prison escape).

    Apollonian: The person, of whatever gender, who’ll get right unified field theory.

    1. I forgot some of the rules…

      To be around the music when Ella was recording the Songbooks…..I’d be happy to be just a fly on the wall, let alone Norman Granz.

      Also, and probably more importantly than the music Norm Granz produced, would be his contribution to the Civil Rights Movement.

      That should cover it.

  35. Every night, I go to bed an optimist, because tomorrow, by god, I’m going to wake up changed. It’ll be a new day! I can start over!

    Every morning, I wake up a pessimist, the same person I was when I went to bed the night before.

    In between getting up and going to bed, I drink beer. Or used to, so I don’t even have that going for me anymore.

    So fuck it, I’d trade places with the Queen of England. She’s got all those palaces and such, and for sure, she doesn’t have my bad habits.

  36. I’d like to be Albert Einstein and discover the secrets of the cosmos by staring out of a window and make huge blunders like the cosmological constant.

    1. The CC was not a huge blunder (Einstein’s rare modesty not withstanding). The constant is just an integration constant; the mistake is thinking that it must be 0.

  37. I wouldn’t want to lose myself in the process but, not thinking too much about it, it’s still hard to choose!

    On the Apollonian side perhaps Elon Musk, Carl Sagan or Pyrrho during a time frame that includes his adventures in the entourage of Alexander during his campaigns.

    On the Dionysian side perhaps Valentino Rossi? I give up. This is hard.

  38. Following Jerry’s idea, Dr. Charles Beat, co-discoverer with Banting of insulin. I cannot imagine a better feeling than having done some research which saved so many lives and produced happier lives. He did overlap with me (Banting died before my day), worked at my undergrad place, deserved but didn’t get Nobel (the academic boss shared it with Banting), and did many good things later as well IIRC, and the same nationality (Canuck) as me.

    On the contemporary music side, I might for slightly non-musical reasons as well, pick Roger Waters, but would decide against also for non-musical reasons, with a father being a war death before I was very old.

    I’ll cheat on the contemporaneous criterion in music, and show my old fashionedness by picking Gustav Mahler. The alteration of the enjoyable and much more lucrative opera conducting with the scramble to get time to compose, has always seemed similar to lives of many academics, who enjoy teaching with schedule not their own choosing, but have the conflict of the effort to get enough time to concentrate for productive research (and hope some results there will outlive them). Mahler’s music became popular only long after his earlyish death (in 1911 IIRC).

  39. Hmmm. Tennessee Williams had astonishing productivity between 1945-1960. The Glass Menagerie, Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, Suddenly, Last Summer, & Sweet Bird of Youth.

    He worked at peak artistic capacity during these years, like Frances Coppola making his Godfather movies or Martin Scorsese during the same period.

    Another choice would be Bob Dylan 1960-1975. Ideally, I’d like to live Bob through the 60s and skip the rest, but Bob through ’75 keeps me in line with the rules.

    George Eliot was a very homely looking woman, but from 1859-1876, she wrote her major works and lived her life her way, a little bohemian, a little radical(ish). She also translated David Strauss’s “Life of Jesus” into English, which was one of the first books to try to give an account of an historical Jesus, without a divine nature. The Jesus he presents has the miracles and supernaturalisms added in after his death by the early church.

    1. > She also translated David Strauss’s “Life of Jesus” into English, which was one of the first books to try to give an account of an historical Jesus, without a divine nature.

      If they had blurbs on their book jackets back then, they would’ve been a hoot: “The most pestilential book ever vomited out of the jaws of hell.”

    2. “George Eliot was a very homely looking woman”.

      Probably why her parents named her “George”. 😀

      Yes, I know it was a pen name because she was a woman and wanted to sell her work but I thought my joke was funny. Makes me want to sit in on an English class just to make it.

  40. Dionysian: I would be Mark Knopfler and play the guitar just like that. He is at my age so we are just alike…sure.

    Apollonian: Abraham Lincoln because he comes in first on most serious rankings of U.S. Presidents and it would be great to be that smart. Maybe the toughest challenge anyone ever faced and the one guy who did make the biggest difference in our history. Also a pretty fair lawyer and writer as well.

  41. One person that sticks in my mind as a real candidate for a trade is W. Somerset Maugham. He lived a fascinating and full life. He travelled all over the world, knew all sorts of interesting people, wrote many beautiful pieces of literature and was widely recognized as a literary giant in his day (he was also very well paid for his efforts). He travelled to the Pacific to write his biography of Paul Gauguin. He worked undercover for the British Secret Intelligence Service, and created a character that would be Ian Fleming’s inspiration for James Bond. He literally hosted massive Gatsby-esque parties for all manner of artists and writers at his private estates, playing host to the intelligentsia of the 1920’s and 30’s.

    Then there is the internal conflict and turmoil that plagued him his whole life, as he was a homosexual in an age that didn’t allow it. He struggled with love and family his whole life, but that struggle was an integral part of his work and experience.

  42. I would like to be Judy Collins beginning with the night of the party that she first met Stills in 1968.

    To be so vehemently loved by a man with so much unashamed & unbridled passion (for me!), sensitivity, artistry, gallantry, integrity, dauntlessness, humor and exquisite attractiveness would be my heart’s desire.

    It would become my mission in life to reciprocate that love and make him the happiest, most satisfied, adored and pampered man on earth for as long as he shall live.

  43. I guess I’ll go with the sappy answer. Since trading palaces would mean being separated from my wife and daughter, I wouldn’t want to trade with anybody. (Incidentally, this is similar to my answer to the thought experiment of whether or not I’d want to live forever – not if it was just me and not the people I cared about). Plus, I’m happy with my life. I feel like I have the talent and resources that if I should be doing anything drastically different, then I should just do it.

    If I had to trade, though, it would be down to 3 people – Orville or Wilbur Wright, or Neil Armstrong. First in flight or first on the moon are just awesome. And given my love of flight, the Wright Brothers are my answers for both Dionysian and Apollonian answers. I can’t think of much more pleasurable than perfecting powered flight when it was still just a dream to most people. Though if I could break rule 4, I’d probably drop the lawsuit with Glen Curtiss. And maybe go see a doctor a little sooner if I was Wilbur.

        1. Unless you decide to be Jeff Lewis at the time he made his choice to be Neil Armstrong…:-)

    2. My choice as well. To leave the earth and travel to that desolate and hostile place where no earthling has been before.. wow.

  45. Now that I think of it, how do I know that I wasn’t swapped with someone else and we’re both completely clueless about the switch?

    1. You mean like maybe you’re really supposed to be Donald Trump? Dodged a bullet there, I’d say.

      1. I don’t know if it is supposed to be like this, but maybe I am Donald Trump, and he is me. And neither of us know it!

  46. What an interesting question. My choice (a very personal one) would be J. Norman Collie (1859-1942). Professor of Organic Chemistry, pioneer in noble gas research and the medical application of X-rays, and one of the greatest mountaineers of his time (Scotland, Alps, Caucasus, Canadian Rockies, etc). He did all his best work in both fields between about 1885 and 1910, so that would be the ideal timescale for me.

  48. Dionysian: Wolfgang Mozart. Perfect combination of genius, legacy for eternity and hedonism.

    Apollonian: David Attenborough. Just to have a chance to visit almost every corner of our planet with the main mission of educating people. Just noticed that a few other readers picked Sir D. Attenborough!

  49. Alexander the Great was so impressed when he finally met Diogenes in Corinth, that he said to Hephaeston Gosh, if I weren’t Alexander I’d like to be Diogenes. Diogenes overheard the remark and piped up, I agree with you, if I weren’t Diogenes I’d like to be Diogenes too.

  51. I’d just like to be someone who was a “natural” at something, i.e., completely wired for it. I’d like to have been Hitchens for the way he could write and speak, Clapton or Page for their guitar playing. Not that those guys didn’t have to work at their craft but the same amount of effort by me would have left me in obscurity. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want some of Hitchens’ political views or Clapton’s or Pages drug, etc, issues.

  52. I always tell my friend I want to, if not be, have access to inhabit her husband’s body because he’s a big guy and he totally wastes his intimidation power by being a very nice guy. I figure my temper is mismatched to my feminine size and I needs to get my revenge. No promises of returning the body in a non-bruised condition.

  53. McCartney. From the time he first met George, until current day. He’s faced significant personal tragedy, and has come out the other side – early loss of a mother, loss of his best friend (despite their rift), loss of the love of his life. And through it all, he’s maintained mostly cheer and love in his music.

    What a life. I can’t put into words the effect he’s had on me, and I realize I’m just one of millions. His music breaks down barriers – language, cultural, ideological. He unites people. He encourages joy and compassion.

    And for purely selfish reasons – just to have that voice. I love the voice singing “Early Days” just as much as I do the one that sang “Beautiful Night” and the one that sang “Maybe I’m Amazed.”

      1. I considered it 😉 But if I could choose one person, it would be Macca!

    1. Amal has everything going for her – a great career, talent, intelligence, a social conscience, good taste, beauty inside and out, a good husband, nice friends and family, love, happiness, security… the only part I don’t like is the lack of privacy.

          3. Sorry, went wrong place.

            But why not Fiona Freud, 2nd lady of the guitar?? See “Double Exposure” CBC Radio maybe 20 years ago.

          4. He would have been my top ‘dead person’, but was already taken. Attenborough taken too.

            It took me a while to find anything on Fiona Freud besides the horse of the same name! Sadly, no online video or photo of Nancy White (a different one) donning a ‘Boydesque wig’ and ‘diaphonous gown’.
            https://business.highbeam.com/435424/article-1G1-64825646/white-still-has-music-her
            Here’s a funny song she did, about Jesus at Tim’s:
            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpIBatXkKOw&index=1&list=PLxMPuQOyVcZkXzat96-tANx7olrnDiHtu

  55. I also want to be the human version of my dog. She is blonde, leggy, smart, highly gregarious and everyone wants to talk to her. She lights up a room when she enters it. Nothing gets her down and if you annoy her, she isn’t afraid to tell you by narrowing her eyes and lipping you off.

    2. I’m with you there. My cat is a little Abyssinian and she is perfect and beautiful.

      She lives her life oblivious to everything. She is slim and toned, without even trying.

      However, she cannot catch mice. She is an absolute failure as a cat but I love her regardless.

  56. Dionysian: John Coltrane, from 1957 until he died in 1969. (I was born in 1968, so I sneak in there). Why John Coltrane? Does this really require any explanation? He is still, to my mind–even more than Charlie Parker (no offense to those who rightfully still are blown away by Bird)–the most fiery improvisational musician in jazz history. He fought through a dreadful childhood and near fatal heroin addiction, to first pair with Miles Davis on some of the best known and most magnificent music of the 20th, or any, century. He then branched into far longer form improvisations with his own quintet, with “free” jazz and with revisiting standards by offering waves upon waves of conceptual and melodic extrapolation. Did he have a “religious awakening” that fueled some of his greatest music? Yeah, tis true. But I personally give not one single you know what for that. The music exists no matter. (And as a dark side note, Coltrane originally paired with Miles in the mid 1950s, roughly four years before the epic “Kind of Blue” recording. Miles kicked him out of the band for a while. Why? Because of Coltrane’s heroin problem. Let me make it clear: when MILES DAVIS says YOU have a drug problem, my friend, it’s time to rethink what you want to do with that arm.)

    Apollonian: The master teacher Richard Feynmann. I realize some folks might cry “cheater!” because Dr. Feynmann lived such a marvelous life, but isn’t that even a better reason to choose him? Not only did he give the world (or, anyone who bothers to read them) astonishingly elegant and accessible lectures about the state of the universe, but he was also a terrific example of how to go about getting the last drops of marrow our of the one life we get.

    That’s my story, I’m sticking to it.

  57. Me. me. me. Me.

    You may think “meh”, but you are just envious. 😉

  58. Dionysian: Sean Connery. This admission may be cringeworthy for most if not all of those who visit WEIT. I can live with that. I did not make this choice just because he was an actor playing the role of James Bond when my younger eyes first saw him in film. I chose him because even though in real life he was not saving the world every moment, he must have had quite a line up of women just wanting to be near him. It would be a gender change for me and in reality there would have to be a new name for this type of thing. I am told women who like younger men are called “Cougars”. What would be the opposite of that?
    Still pondering the good works choice. My instinct leads me to the old man who pushed a cart down the middle of the street I grew up on who made a living sharpening knives.

    1. And I did not think about the knife sharpener because he was an old man. I thought about him because I admired how hard he worked and how he did something that people were really grateful for even in the age when you could buy a device to do it for you or if you were skilled enough to use a sharpener and do it yourself, I bet you would never have done it as well as it was his passion and it was all he did.

  59. I’d love to spend some years embodying Jim Morrison, Alice Cooper, Roger Waters, John Lennon, or possibly some of their contemporaries.

    Not only were/are they terrific performers and song writers, each of them are highly intelligent, made a fortune doing what they love, and got to live the envied “dream”/fantasy many of us desire.

    Lest we forget the sheer debauchery of (some of) their lives which is also an enticing factor.

    I’d include Ozzy Osbourne in this list, but would have to omit the “highly intelligent” part of the description.

    1. I second your John Lennon choice but his untimely death was a horror to me. Still is.

  60. About legacies:

    I’m not concerned with whether or not people think I was a “great man” after I’m gone, but I do want to have contributed something noteworthy to humanity. And for it to be considered a contribution, I suppose other people would have to agree that it was noteworthy.

    Still working on this.

    1. I like how you said noteworthy there. Being someone who is talented musically.
      I wonder where that usage started? Can you tell me?

  61. Dionysian: I agree with Jerry, I’d want to be Paul McCartney. Being a Beatle was such a singular experience in human history. Paul didn’t get into heroin, cocaine or any of the other heavy drugs that took down so many rock/pop stars. I admit I would override the whole vegetarian thing as I love BBQ way too much to give up. I would change a few things with John and George so the breakup of the Beatles wouldn’t have been so ugly.

    Apollonian: There are so many candidates but since I love the exploration of space so much, I’d pick Astronaut/Geologist Harrison Schmitt who got to be the only scientist to explore the moon. During the Apollo 17 mission, he got to spend 22 hours exploring the lunar surface at Taurus-Littrow. If I was forced to remain earthbound, I’d go with Carl Sagan. He was such a great force for spreading scientific literacy and Humanism.

  62. I’m not usually one to do this kind of speculating. But a little while ago I chanced upon a video of a conversation between Martin Sheen and Francis Ford Coppola commemorating one or another anniversary of the making of Apocalypse Now. Afterward,I recall being struck by what an accomplished and satisfying life Coppola has led.

    Odd thing is, Coppola isn’t my favorite director, not even my favorite American director. But he’s written, directed, and/or produced a host of excellent movies, including four great ones released in less than a decade — the first two Godfather films, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now. In so doing, he re-launched the career of Marlon Brando, and essentially launched the careers of Al Pacino, James Caan, and the great (but too-short-lived) John Cazale, among many others. He has the respect of his peers, and everyone in his business has always seemed anxious to work with him.

    More importantly, he has the reputation for surrounding himself, both on the set and off, with close-knit family and loyal, loving friends. In every interview I’ve seen of him, he comes off as being completely into what he’s doing. He also comes off as genuine, interested in the well-being of others, and not full of himself — at least by Hollywood standards.

    Coppola started his own Zoetrope Studios. He’s also developed a successful winery and opened a couple excellent restaurants. There’s no doubt he eats and drinks well. And on top of it all, he launched and contributes to a top-notch literary magazine.

    Overall, his strikes me as a life well-lived. If it came to trading places with someone, a person could sure do worse than FFC.

    1. There’s a documentary called Hearts of Darkness that chronicles everything that went wrong during the making of Apocalypse Now. The project came close to bankrupting Coppola and nearly cost Martin Sheen his life, and while the resulting film is undoubtedly an achievement to be proud of, that can’t have been a fun period to live through.

      1. Yeah, I saw that documentary a few years ago. (I think it’s also included in the Apocalypse Redux DVD set I have, along with Coppola’s extended director’s cut of the movie.)

        In his discussion with Sheen, Coppola discussed some of the adversity they went through in making the movie. They also discussed some of the great experiences they had while filming. Anyone whose life I would consider swapping with — anyone with a life well-lived, for that matter — has had to overcome some adversity. I like my fun (more than most, I suspect, and probably more than what’s been salutary, strictly speaking), but I wouldn’t want to live a life that was nothing but wall-to-wall good times.

  63. I hesitated with my response to this post so as not to respond reflexively.

    There is one person I’ve admired *all* of my adult life. I think he should get a nobel prize in the humanities. I once wrote the Boston Globe saying as much. To me, everything his mind has touched has been magic, intellectually inspired, sincere, and impactful.

    He’s Steven Pinker. He’s also the only person whose life I’ve followed over the course of my adult years, the only living person who meets the 15-year requirement set above, at least in terms of him having my attention for at least that amount of time.

    This is starting to change. I have to admit that I learned about Jerry from Steven Pinker. But, the more I learn about and from Jerry, the more I see qualities I’d like to be–the more admiration and inspiration I feel.

    So there you have it. They are two scientists whose contributions and engagement move me to being a better person and whose work has touched millions–whose minds stand out above all others.

    As for who my third person could be, I’ll have to get back to you. There are three women for whom I have author envy. But I’ve not followed their lives, so I won’t mention who they are. Nonetheless, the quality they, Steven, and Jerry share is that all are *public intellectuals*.

  64. I can’t think of any real human I would like to have been. However, as a kid I used to be picked on, somewhat frail, wore glasses so was called “Four Eyes”, afraid of girls (you can imagine what I had to endure for that}. So (I gonna break da rulz here, Jerry will probably throw me off the site) I would like to have been my favorite childhood hero, The Lone Ranger, the one I grew up with on the radio was played by Brace Beamer, not (as wrongly reported by Brian Williams, Fred Foy). Foy was the show’s announcer. Let me relive my childhood just briefly:

    Foy: Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. From out of the past, come the thundering hoof beats of the great white horse Silver. The Lone Ranger rides again!

    Beamer: Come on Silver! Let’s go, big fella. Hi Yo Silver, away!

    Music: William Tell Overture, up and over, segue to action.

    1. My 10- or 11-yr-old self had a real crush on the TV Lone Ranger ( was it Clayton Moore?)

      1. You got that right, Merilee. And Tonto was played by Jay Silverheels. I saw some of the TV episodes (by visiting my parents) because I was an undergrad in college and couldn’t afford my own TV.

  65. I have often pondered this question, so many heros with seemingly wonderful lives, but then I remember that we never know the secret sorrows of others, so I would stick to my usual non-risk-taking strategy as outlined by Hillaire Belloc:

    “And always keep a-hold of Nurse
    For fear of finding something worse.”

  67. Democritus of Abdera, though I must confess that may be because I am rereading the presocratics – again.

    Though I still question what exactly we are answering. 😉

  68. I don’t know who I’d like to be, but every time I got to the doctor or the dentist, I know when I’d like to be–RIGHT NOW.

  69. If I could, I’d choose to be myself minus a few mistakes. This post made me think. From the Apollonian side, I thought of Dimitar Peshev, “the man who stopped Hitler”, because of his contribution to the salvation of many Jews during WWII. But he was imprisoned for more than a year. I do not want to serve prison time.
    So I’d trade places with Frances Oldham Kelsey who saved American babies from thalidomide. She was foresighted and principled, and used this to benefit others. Also, she was strong, wasn’t afraid of unusual paths, had a scientific mind and lived happily (as far as I can tell) to an old age – Dionysian as well as Apollonian.

  70. A certain gynaecologist who I will not name here. For no more reason than that he married the love of my life.

    1. But you’d have to get dragged around behind that chariot even after you died from it. Maybe don’t kill Achilles’s boyfriend.

  72. Tough question actually…there’s a lot of people that I admire greatly, but I wouldn’t want to switch places with them!

    I’d have to pick maybe Wade Davis – the ethnobotanist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. He’s had absolutely fascinating adventures in really remote parts of the world and his books are *gorgeous*. He’s done everything from tracking down hallucinogenic frogs to expeditions to photograph clouded leopards. Not to mention is trek up the Amazon river.

    I’d also have to maybe put into the running Agnes Macphail, the 1st woman to be elected to the Canadian House of Commons in 1921 – she championed pensions for seniors and worker’s rights, first president of the Ontario CCF in 1932.

    “Never apologize. Never explain. Just get the thing done, and let them howl.”

    Or … Tommy Douglas, the ‘Father of Canadian healthcare’ and first leader of the New Democratic Party. He was premier of Saskatchewan and led the first elected socialist government in Canada. His speech “Mouseland” is still one of the best political and inspirational speeches that I’ve ever heard and he cared about people so much and did so much for Canada.

    “We are all in this world together, and the only test of our character that matters is how we look after the least fortunate among us. How we look after each other, not how we look after ourselves. That’s all that really matters, I think.”

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