The Pursuit of Greatness — Transcript

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1. 0:00The Swiss [music] psychologist Carl Jung
2. 0:02observed a fundamental truth about human
3. 0:05development that the modern world
4. 0:07desperately tries to ignore. [music]
5. 0:10He wrote that no tree can grow to heaven
6. 0:13unless its roots reach down to hell.
7. 0:16What Jung understood [music] is that
8. 0:19greatness is not the cultivation of a
9. 0:21flawless sterile persona. It is the
10. 0:24terrifying process of individuation. It
11. 0:27demands that you confront your shadow,
12. 0:29[music]
13. 0:30the suppressed, chaotic, and dangerous
14. 0:32depths of your own nature [music] and
15. 0:34integrate it. The average person spends
16. 0:37their life running away from their inner
17. 0:40darkness, [music] projecting it onto
18. 0:42others and seeking comfort in a fragile,
19. 0:44artificial innocence. [music]
20. 0:46But the individual who pursues true
21. 0:48greatness walks directly into their own
22. 0:51abyss. [music] They do not seek to be
23. 0:54perfect. They seek to be whole. They
24. 0:57harness their aggression, their
25. 0:58ambition, [music] and their capacity for
26. 1:00destruction, and they bind them to a
27. 1:03higher [music] creative will. You cannot
28. 1:06be truly powerful until you acknowledge
29. 1:08your capacity for malice and consciously
30. 1:10choose discipline instead. [music]
31. 1:13To embark on this path requires a
32. 1:15radical break from the collective
33. 1:17consciousness. The Danish philosopher
34. 1:19Surin Kagard warned us about the
35. 1:22suffocating nature of what he called the
36. 1:24crowd. [music]
37. 1:25He asserted that the crowd is untruth, a
38. 1:28massive faceless entity that absolves
39. 1:30the individual of personal
40. 1:32responsibility and dilutes the sharpness
41. 1:34of the spirit.
42. 1:36Kirkagard noted that when a person steps
43. 1:38[music] out from the crowd to claim
44. 1:40their own destiny, they are immediately
45. 1:42seized by [music] anxiety, what he
46. 1:44beautifully termed the dizziness of
47. 1:47freedom. [music]
48. 1:48Most people cannot endure this
49. 1:50dizziness. When they realize the sheer
50. 1:53weight of their own potential, [music]
51. 1:55when they see the terrifying expanse of
52. 1:57what they could achieve if they took
53. 1:59absolute responsibility for their lives,
54. 2:01[music] they panic. They sprint back to
55. 2:04the safety of mediocrity. They look for
56. 2:06committees to join, trends [music] to
57. 2:09follow, and common opinions to adopt
58. 2:11just to quiet the ringing in their ears.
59. 2:14>> [music]
60. 2:14>> But the pursuit of greatness requires
61. 2:16you to stand still in that dizziness. It
62. 2:19requires you to look down into the void
63. 2:21of your own freedom and instead [music]
64. 2:23of retreating, step out into it. This
65. 2:26step is an act of violent psychological
66. 2:29rebirth. [music] In his literary
67. 2:31masterpiece, Demian, Herman Hessa
68. 2:33captured this exact threshold of
69. 2:35transformation. [music] He wrote that
70. 2:37the bird fights its way out of the egg.
71. 2:40The egg is the world. who would be born
72. 2:42must first destroy a world. Think about
73. 2:45the worlds you are currently preserving
74. 2:47out of sheer cowardice. The world of
75. 2:50your old habits, the world of your
76. 2:52comfortable relationships that require
77. 2:54you to stay small, the world of your
78. 2:57fragile self-image that crumbles at the
79. 2:59first sign of criticism. To achieve
80. 3:02something genuinely transcendent,
81. 3:04[music]
82. 3:05you must be willing to become the
83. 3:06destroyer of your own current existence.
84. 3:10You must allow your old insufficient
85. 3:11[music] self to die so that something
86. 3:14more resilient can take its place. This
87. 3:17is why the pursuit [music] of greatness
88. 3:19feels like a mourning process. It is a
89. 3:22continuous funeral for the person you
90. 3:24used to be. As you burn away the old
91. 3:26world, your [music] relationship with
92. 3:28time itself must change. The modern mind
93. 3:31is plagued [music] by a frantic,
94. 3:33short-sighted desperation for immediacy.
95. 3:36We want the insights of a lifelong
96. 3:39scholar summarized [music] in a bullet
97. 3:41point. We want the mastery of a virtuoso
98. 3:44captured in a weekend seminar. This is a
99. 3:47sickness born of existential emptiness.
100. 3:50[music]
101. 3:51The French thinker Gaston Bashelar in
102. 3:54his reflections on time and space
103. 3:56[music]
104. 3:57spoke of the difference between
105. 3:58horizontal time, the superficial ticking
106. 4:01of the clock [music] that carries us
107. 4:02toward decay, and vertical time, the
108. 4:05deep concentrated moments of intense
109. 4:08creation where time seems to stand
110. 4:10completely still. [music] The pursuit of
111. 4:13greatness exists entirely in vertical
112. 4:15time. It is found in the hours where you
113. 4:18are so deeply immersed in the mastery of
114. 4:20a complex idea, [music] the refinement
115. 4:22of a difficult skill, or the execution
116. 4:25of a monumental task that the external
117. 4:28world ceases [music] to exist. It is the
118. 4:31realization that a single year of
119. 4:33absolute unbroken focus can yield more
120. 4:36spiritual evolution than a decade of
121. 4:39distracted [music] lukewarm effort. But
122. 4:41let us be completely honest about the
123. 4:44price of this devotion. It will isolate
124. 4:46you. In the brothers Karamazov, Fodor
125. 4:49Dstoyki wrote profoundly about the
126. 4:52concept of active love and spiritual
127. 4:54labor. [music] He noted that compared to
128. 4:57love in dreams, which thirsts for
129. 4:59immediate action, rapidly performed and
130. 5:02in the sight of all, active love is a
131. 5:05harsh and dreadful [music] thing. The
132. 5:07same is true for the pursuit of
133. 5:09greatness. Greatness in dreams is
134. 5:11glamorous, [music] filled with standing
135. 5:13ovations and effortless triumphs. But
136. 5:16greatness in reality [music] is a harsh
137. 5:18and dreadful thing. It is the grueling,
138. 5:21unglamorous labor performed when no one
139. 5:24is watching, [music] when you are
140. 5:25exhausted, and when your own mind is
141. 5:28screaming at you to quit. [music]
142. 5:30It is the ability to maintain your
143. 5:32devotion to your vision when the initial
144. 5:34enthusiasm has completely evaporated and
145. 5:37all that remains is the cold hard weight
146. 5:40of duty. [music]
147. 5:42This duty is not to an external
148. 5:44authority but to the latent genius
149. 5:47within you.
150. 5:48>> [music]
151. 5:48>> The essaist Ralph Waldo Emerson remarked
152. 5:51that the power which resides in him is
153. 5:54new in nature and none but he knows what
154. 5:57that is which he can do nor does he know
155. 5:59until he is tried. [music] There is a
156. 6:01specific unre repeatable excellence that
157. 6:03only you can bring into reality. [music]
158. 6:06If you fail to cultivate it, if you
159. 6:08allow it to be smothered by distraction,
160. 6:10[music] comfort, and the desperate
161. 6:12desire to fit in, you are committing the
162. 6:14ultimate form of spiritual treason. You
163. 6:17are leaving the world darker than it
164. 6:19should have been. Therefore, [music]
165. 6:21do not look for shortcuts or easy maps.
166. 6:24Do not ask for a path that does not
167. 6:26demand your blood, your sweat, and your
168. 6:28tears. [music]
169. 6:29The difficulty is not a design flaw. It
170. 6:31is the entire point. The resistance you
171. 6:33encounter is the metric of your ascent.
172. 6:35[music] When you sit down tonight in the
173. 6:37quiet of your room, look past the
174. 6:39superficial desires of your ego. Look
175. 6:42deeper. Ask yourself what world you need
176. 6:44to destroy to unleash the bird. Ask what
177. 6:47darkness you need to integrate to find
178. 6:49your true strength. [music] Stop waiting
179. 6:51for a savior. Stop waiting for
180. 6:53permission and stop waiting for the
181. 6:55perfect conditions. [music]
182. 6:56For this is the final unyielding truth
183. 6:59of the pursuit. The forge never cools.
184. 7:02You do not arrive at greatness only to
185. 7:04put down the hammer and rest upon a
186. 7:06pedestal. True excellence [music] is a
187. 7:08continuous state of becoming, a lifelong
188. 7:11devotion to the fire. [music] It is what
189. 7:13the philosophers called amor fati, the
190. 7:16radical unconditional love of one's
191. 7:19fate. [music]
192. 7:20It is the choice to not merely tolerate
193. 7:22the resistance, the isolation, and the
194. 7:24weight, but to embrace them as the
195. 7:26precise instruments of your creation.
196. 7:29When you cease to fear the heat, the
197. 7:32world loses its power to burn you. You
198. 7:34[music] become the flame itself,
199. 7:36illuminating the darkness around you and
200. 7:39transforming every cold hardship into a
201. 7:41brilliant enduring light. [music] The
202. 7:44road ahead is long and the silence is
203. 7:46absolute, but the destination is nothing
204. 7:49less than the awakening of your true
205. 7:51uncompromised [music] self. Walk forward
206. 7:54into the forge and let the work begin.
207. 7:56[music]